Police have seized hundreds of thousands of euros worth of fake champagne in a workshop near Padua, northern Italy, with counterfeiters looking to pass off sparkling wine as Moet & Chandon.
Eight
people face
charges but no one has been taken into custody, police
said, after they found 9,200 bottles of prosecco and a machine used to
make the metallic wrappers that cover the top of the bottles.
As
well as the already-labelled bottles, which would have fetched about
350,000 euros ($380,000), police said in a statement they found a
further 40,000 labels which, if used, could have taken the illicit
earnings to more than 1.8 million.
"The system was very detailed and specialised," said Lieutenant Colonel Luca Lettere, noting that police were investigating whether the people involved had counterfeited other luxury goods.
"They
chose champagne because it can be sold for such a high profit. Buying
prosecco for one or two euros, they can put it on the market for 35 or
40 euros," he said. "We absolutely cannot rule out that other goods may be involved."
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