The Court of Instruction 3 of Reus (Tarragona) has charged six people for allegedly using a group of five companies to produce, bottle and distribute wine falsely labeled with the Priorat, Terra Alta, Montsant, Tarragona Denominations of Origin (DO) and Catalonia.
In a car, the judge summons the six investigated by alleged fraud, misleading advertising, false documents and crime against industrial property to interrogate them on September 21 and 22, and also investigates the five companies with which they are all linked and that they used for the different stages of production, bottling and distribution.
The investigation began in the summer of last year with a Joint complaint from the Regulatory Councils of the DO Priorat, Montsant and Terra Altaand the judge has found that the alleged fraud of this business group, the Reserva de la Tierra Group“can end up altering the normal functioning of the market” due to its size and the low prices at which it sells compared to regulated wines.
The Mossos d’Esquadra, which have investigated the case, have found “clear indications” that this group of companies – which share management positions and facilities and have the same registered office – have fraudulently marketed bottles of wine as if they were from these DO but in reality they are of unknown origin and quality and have not been qualified by the Regulatory Councils.
In addition to the false mention of the DO, on the labels of the investigated wines “they add false aging characteristics and fraudulent mentions of contests and medals”.
81 million false labels
During the investigation, the Mossos d’Esquadra have searched the adhesive company that supplied the suspects, and have found 81,454,307 false guarantee labels billed to one of the companies investigated with data from the five affected DOs.
The police investigation has concluded that allegedly the sales of fraudulent wines from these five DOs amount to approximately 50% of the total wines produced and marketed by the Grupo Reserva de la Tierra, which is among 30 and 35 million bottles per year.
The judge has verified that between 2019 and July 2021 the business group sold a total of 40,050,902 bottles for a price of 51,350,647 euros, generating a margin of 14,216,247 euros.
According to Mossos calculations, this business group he earned about 20 million euros a year selling these fraudulent winesalthough the judge points out that “it will never be possible to calculate the economic damage caused to the buyers of these millions of fraudulent bottles” because the majority of victims of the deception do not know that they have been, and the little money that each one has spent means that Practically no one decides to file a complaint.
Origin of the wine and affectation
The wine considered fraudulent represents 50% of the sales of Grupo Reserva de la Tierra, which sells more than 30 million bottles a year.
Related news
The DO most affected by number of bottles is Terra Altawith more than 10 million fraudulent bottles per year, and in proportion to all the wine qualified in the DO the most affected is Tarragonaas counterfeit bottles account for almost three times its entire production.
In the DO del Prioratthe wine considered fraudulent represents 43.80% of the total production and in the DO Catalonia 2.33%, according to research estimates.