| Abstract: |
Police in Italy swooped on a criminal gang that counterfeited at least 11,000 bottles of premium red wine yesterday. The Valentine’s day operation was the culmination of a two-year operation by the Italian NAS Carabinieri, supported by Europol, against a “sophisticated criminal network” involved in counterfeiting trademarks and distinctive labels owned by a high-quality group of Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) wines protected by the Italian government. The gang counterfeited bottles and boxes of premium wines and filled them with cheap substitute, selling the fakes both in Italy and overseas markets including Belgium and Germany. The boces were printed in Italy but the labels were imported from China. The activity first came to the attention of the authorities in Italy after an order was placed at a print shop in Pistoia to reproduce and print 4,500 wine labels. |
