Taichung prosecutors yesterday indicted 23 people for allegedly selling more than 10,000 bottles of fake alcohol using famous liquor brands between June last year and February.
Lin Shui-sheng (林水生), 57, and a man surnamed Chen (陳), 41, are suspected to be the two principal figures among the 23 people indicted, with the others suspected of being members of the ring or colluding merchants arrested in four raids conducted from February to April.
The suspects were indicted on various charges, including forgery, aggravated fraud and contraventions of the Trademark Act (商標法), as well as the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) under offenses of manufacturing, packaging and selling food materials that have been adulterated or counterfeited under its Article 15, and “those that are sufficient to harm health” under Article 16.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office
They were also indicted on charges of engaging in an organized criminal activity, in contravention of the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例).
Early this year, police uncovered a warehouse stocked with fake alcohol in Taichung’s Waipu District (外埔), where they found Chen heading up the ring and Lin working there, who had a previous record of illegal alcohol production, prosecutor Weng Chia-lung (翁嘉隆) said.
They set up equipment in small labs in rural houses and huts, for the actual fake liquor processing and packaging, mainly to counterfeit famous world brands such as Dalmore and Singleton, the indictment said.
In the four raids, prosecutors supported by police seized 1,935 bottles of packaged whiskey, 50 vats containing whiskey, 18,982 empty whiskey bottles, large batches of corks and whiskey labels, Weng said.
The investigation found that the operation had sold more than 10,000 bottles of bogus whiskey, earning an estimated NT$24.66 million (US$831,199), he said.
The fake alcohol ring would take a bottle of whiskey, and mix it with food-grade alcohol, chemical additives, coloring agents and malt sugar to produce enough whiskey to fill three bottles, Weng said.
Lin has the expertise to replicate the flavors of the real whiskey, and most retailers and consumers were unable to tell the difference, he said.
The bottles and packaging resembled the original brands, as they had been sourced from recycling centers, while labels had been ordered from printing firms in China, Weng said.
Lin has had more than 10 years of experience in illegal liquor production, the indictment said, adding that he had previously been arrested in June 2016, for which he received a 14-month suspended sentence, the indictment said.
He was again arrested on the same charges in 2021, for which he was in December last year handed a two-year sentence, although he had yet to start serving the time in prison due to ongoing appeals, the indictment added.
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