Brief: Suspect wine seized in raid on Taiwan importer

A Taiwan importer is under scrutiny after 30,000 bottles of allegedly counterfeit wines were seized during a raid on its premises.

Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau claims Tequila Development Co imported large quantities of cheap wine from Spain and Chile, re-bottled it and affixed fake labels in order to pass it off as top-tier French brands with a ten-fold mark-up.

The activities are estimated to have netted the company and its chief executive Ted Lin more than NT$100m ($3m) since 2010 through the sale of some 440,000 counterfeit bottles, says a report in the China Post. 

Tests conducted by Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp. found that the contents of the genuine and counterfeit red wines were "clearly different", says the report.