I just read a few minutes ago that the FBI just arrested Los Angeles wine collector Rudy Kurniawan for allegedly trying to sell counterfeit wines worth $1.3 million. This was in connection to a large lot of Burgundies he sold in an Acker Merrall & Condit auction in New York in May 2008.
The story both in the New York Times and Associated Press did not elaborate on what wines in particular, but it was mostly fake bottles in the auction of Domaine Ponsot Clos St.-Denis including 1945, 1949, 1959, 1962, 1966 and 1971.
Here is the New York Times piece.
Interestingly, the Indonesian wine collector turned merchant was recently mentioned throughout the internet in relation to a London Spectrum wine auction that allegedly included fake bottles from him. But the auction house publicly denied his involvement with the sale.
In any case, this is all good news with the recent FBI action. People need to know that penalties can be severe for flogging fake bottles. And such sales have been going on for decades, as we know.
According to the New York Times, the assistant director in the New York office of the FBI said that “the bad-faith sale of any commodity you know to be a counterfeit, fake or forgery is a felony. Whether you are peddling a Picasso or a Petrus, a Botticelli or a Burgundy, unless it is what you say it is, the sale is a fraud.”
I still remember the first and only time I met Kurniawan. We had dinner together at a Chinese restaurant in Rosemead outside of Los Angeles. He brought a magnum of 1961 Latour-a-Pomerol as well as 1971 Petrus. The big bottle was a Nicolas Reserve bottle. I had my doubts. Anyway, it was a long time ago.
