How Rudi Kurniawan cheated the wine world out of millions

Who is Rudi Kurniawan?

Rudi Kurniwan was born in 1976 in Jakarta and was given the name Zhen Wang Huang by his Chinese father. He came to the United States on a student visa in the 1990s. In 2001, Kurniawan unsuccessfully applied for political asylum and was asked to leave the country voluntarily in 2003. Instead, however, he chose to remain in the United States as an illegal alien.

Kurniawan, whose family had become wealthy with a beer distributor in Indonesia, began successfully buying and selling large quantities of rare wines in the early 2000s. He also began organising rare wine tastings with other collectors, where the wine enthusiast had such a great fondness for the Burgundy producer Domaine de la Romanée-Conti showed that he has been called “Dr. Conti” ever since. However, he finally discovered that fine wines such as a 1950 Château Lafleur or a 1945 Romanée-Conti were barely available anymore.

The “Sour Grapes” Bluff

Since Kurniawan had an extremely good palate, lots of wine expertise, good business sense and - not least fraudulent talent - he decided to simply press fine wines himself. For example, he cleverly adulterated old Bordeaux wines with young Californian wines until they met the look and taste of a rare, noble wine. He covered the result with deceptively real labels, and the bluff was perfect.

In the year In 2006, he reached his peak as a wine merchantwhen he was at two auctions at Acker Merrall & Condit sold 34 million dollars worth of wines. The second of these auctions brought in 24.7 million dollars. The fraud was discovered after several lots he submitted for auction turned out to be counterfeits. In 2007, auction house Christie's in Los Angeles withdrew a shipment of alleged magnum bottles from 1982 Chateau Le Pin after the company stated that the bottles were counterfeit.

In 2008, 22 batches of wine from Domaine Ponsot worth more than 600,000 dollars were withdrawn from sale because their authenticity had raised questions. According to prosecutors, Kurniawan made some mistakes that revealed his fraud. For example, he claimed that a bottle of Domaine Ponsot, which he tried to sell at auction in 2008, was produced in 1929, although the winemaker only began bottling it in 1934. Other bottles were claimed to have been bottled in a specific vineyard between 1945 and 1971, although Domaine Ponsot claims to have only been using this vineyard since 1982.

$20 million compensation

After a few more allegations of falsification, the FBI finally searched Kurniawan's house in 2012. There were 18,000 printed labels of top counterfeit wines such as Cheval Blanc, Mouton-Rothschild, Latour, La Mission Haut-Brion, Le Pin or Screaming Eagle from California piled up. At the time, the FBI stated that a total of up to 12,000 bottles of counterfeit wine were sold as a result of Kurniawan's machinations. As a result, the wine scammer was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison and had to compensate his fraud victims with 20 million dollars. After his release, the Immigration Department deported Kurniawan back to Indonesia.

Wine collector Bill Koch had suffered particularly severe financial damage - and that was also the second time. Years earlier, Koch was deceived by Hardy Rodenstock — a German wine merchant who had sold Lafite's fraudulent 18th-century “Jefferson bottles” to collectors. The industrialist purchased several of these Jefferson bottles for around half a million dollars. When he had it examined, the experts he had commissioned came to the conclusion that the engraving was from a modern grinding machine.

In the Kurniawan case, Koch said he spent 4.5 million dollars on 421 wine bottles that turned out to be counterfeits. He spent a further 25 million dollars on the eight court actions he filed.

Avoid counterfeit wine

The examples given show that genuine labels and high prices are often read as a sign of quality. True to the motto: The more expensive the wine, the better it must be. Anyone who regards wine as an investment usually allows the bottle. This usually only leaves buyers to rely on external details such as color, bottle shape and label. Once a wine is opened, many customers don't know what a genuine 1945 Mouton Rothschild should taste like. Experts therefore strongly advise against fine wine investments via platforms such as eBay.

To be on the safe side when it comes to investment wine, you should always consult an expert with a good reputation before buying, or use renowned retailers or platforms such as FINEXITY. They check the certificates of authenticity and storage histories of the individual wines before purchase. This is the only way to guarantee the seamless provenance of Fine Wine, which is considered a sensible investment with attractive return opportunities.

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