Spanish wine under Valais label Wine merchant stands trial in Sion for massive fraud
A wine merchant from Valais is on trial today, Monday, in Sion. He is accused of buying hundreds of thousands of liters of foreign wine and selling it under the AOC Valais designation.
26.08.2024, 06:06
26.08.2024, 06:48
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- A wine merchant from Valais is accused of selling hundreds of thousands of liters of foreign wine as AOC Valais.
- From today, Monday, the accused will have to answer to a court in Sion for embezzlement, fraud, forgery of goods and forgery of documents, among other things.
- According to the investigations by the public prosecutor's office, the wine merchant bought over 730,000 liters of Spanish wine and around 105,000 liters of Schaffhausen wine from two German-speaking companies during this period.
- The man created fake invoices or bookings in the name of Valais wineries that allegedly supplied him with AOC wines from Valais.
- These deliveries never took place, but enabled the wine merchant to pass off a wine as Valais wine that was not.
The accused is facing charges including embezzlement, fraud, forgery of goods and forgery of documents. The man is accused of having set up a "sophisticated, opaque and fraudulent" system by using forged invoices and false cellar or accounting entries "to conceal the true origin and true nature of the wine sold", the public prosecutor's office wrote in its 36-page indictment, which summarizes several years of investigations. The crimes are said to have taken place at least between 2009 and 2016.
According to the investigations by the public prosecutor's office, the wine merchant purchased over 730,000 liters of Spanish wine and around 105,000 liters of Schaffhausen wine from two German-speaking companies during this period. He concealed these purchases by including invoices for cellar work, bottling and consultancy services in his accounts.
On the other hand, the man created several dozen fake invoices or bookings in the name of Valais wineries that allegedly supplied him with AOC wines from Valais "to ensure the adequacy of stocks and to be able to sell these wines". These deliveries never took place, but enabled the wine merchant to pass off a wine as Valais wine that was not.
Label fraud
"Wine sold under the designation AOC Valais was thus falsely placed on the market by deceiving buyers, consumers and the winegrowing supervisory bodies," the indictment states. The maneuver enabled the accused "to gain an unlawful advantage and to enrich himself unlawfully".
The wine merchant had attracted suspicion after the wine control system was reformed in 2016, which facilitated the exchange of information between the various state control authorities. The State of Valais filed a complaint and appeared as a civil party in January 2017.