Label fraud Valais wine merchant allegedly swindled millions
A Valais wine merchant is said to have made millions for years with fraudulent labeling. Now he has been charged. His Porsches and Ferraris have been confiscated.
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- A Valais wine merchant allegedly sold hundreds of thousands of liters of wine as AOC Valais.
- However, the wine did not come from Valais, or only in part.
- The investigation led to the confiscation of luxury goods and real estate worth several million.
A wine merchant from Sion is suspected of having falsely sold hundreds of thousands of liters of wine as AOC Valais over several years. This practice allegedly earned him millions of francs, as reported by the "Walliser Bote" newspaper.
The Valais public prosecutor's office has now brought comprehensive charges against him for fraud, forgery of documents and counterfeiting of goods. According to the indictment, the trader allegedly sourced wine from abroad and other parts of Switzerland and then declared it as Valais wine, supported by forged invoices and bookings. The trader is said to have mixed some of the wine with genuine Valais wine and some of it was sold undiluted as wine from abroad.
A total of 315,000 liters of falsely labeled wine is said to have been sold. According to the public prosecutor's office, the fraudulent scheme, which allegedly ran from 2009 to 2016, generated proceeds totaling at least 11.8 million francs and a profit of around 2.5 million francs.
Porsches and Ferraris confiscated
The investigations led to the confiscation of luxury goods and real estate worth several million francs. According to the "Boten", 13 luxury vehicles, including Ferraris, Porsches and Aston Martins, as well as 15 bank accounts and 13 properties were frozen until the trial.
The trial is scheduled for the end of August. The presumption of innocence applies.