Nothing is off limits for counterfeiters. If there's money to be made, counterfeiters will go for it. Extremely expensive wine and spirits are a self-evident target: To expose the scam you need to open the bottle – AND be competent to identify the content as fake. But how many open a €15.000 bottle of wine or a €25.000 bottle of whisky? Most of them just lie there, in a collection, maturing, or get traded between collectors. And if the content isn't up to expectations when opened, if ever, you can always persuade yourself that you've stored it incorrectly or that the cork was faulty. The chances of the scam getting exposed is minimal.
Big bust in France, Italy and Switzerland
Over recent decades, wine fraud has developed from "an artisanal craft" to big business. The epicentre in Europe seems to be in Italy. The combination of skilled craftsmen and organised crime provides fertile soil for wine fraud.
But apparently wine fraud is far from exclusive to Italy. Spanish wine producers tell that customers in China insist of importing directly from them instead of through their local agents, because of a lack of trust.
Mid October, police in France, Italy and Switzerland, supported by Europol and Eurojust busted a counterfeiting operation across all three countries. Police seized a large amount of wine bottles from counterfeited Grand Cru domaines, labels, wax and corks, equipment to fill and recap bottles and electronic equipment, valued at €1.4 million and €100.000 in cash, and 6 arrests.
The criminal network had faked prestige French apellations, filling them in Italy with cheap local wine and selling them at up to €15.000 per bottle all over the world via unknowing wine traders. The suspected leader, a Russian national and five others were arrested in Paris, Turin and Milan.
With detection so difficult, how about prevention?
In its' coverage of the news story, BBC quote a wine auctioneer saying that "counterfeiting of old bottles and labels is so skilful that even the vineyards themselves are often unable to spot a fake".
How about using smart technology instead?
Using isAuthentic, our hawk-eyed computer vision scans products at the source, processes the images into a level of detail impossible for the human eye, creates an individual digital ID – a fingerprint – FOR EACH ITEM, FOR EACH BOTTLE and saves it for later reference.
It can be done in the production line for higher volume products and one by one for more exclusive items.
When scanned again, the new scan is compared with the original digital fingerprint. If it's a match, you're good to go. If not, it's a no go. As simple as that.
No need to add anything at all. No added complexity. Nothing else that counterfeiters finally with crack how to counterfeit.
(For those very high value items, you could re-scan them at times, especially in connection with transactions, thereby combining the verification of authenticity with digital provenance.)
Image by yula on iStock