In total forty-seven suspects have been arrested over a sham Moutai and Wuliangye baijiu scam, Thirty staff members from local bars and hotels were also involved. Said Shanghai police.
The hotel and bar workers collected empty baijiu bottles from their customers and passed them on to the other gang members who refilled them with cheap, inferior liquor. If the baijiu the gang had sold had been genuine it is estimated it would have been worth over sixty million yuan or eight point five million U.S. Dollars.
The police in Songjiang district said the investigation started in may, after solving a related case also involving fake baijiu. The fakes in the initial case came from the same source and the packaging resembled genuine bottles.
Police confirmed that the fake baijiu was produced in Shanghai, and the lead suspect in the case had even opened a shop to sell the bogus spirit.
The suspects were caught in locations throughout Shanghai between August and October. The police found two thousand three hundred full bottles of bogus baijiu as well as eight hundred empty bottles.
Eight of the suspects have been arrested for allegedly infringing registered brands, nine more are under detention and thirty others have been bailed.