Wine dealer swindled clients out of millions by selling fake concoctions

Wine dealer swindled clients out of millions by selling fake concoctions
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Mixing random bottles of wine and pawning the results off to others sounds like something you might do on a slow night in with your friends — but that's what just got renowned wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan sentenced to 10 years in prison. The New York Times reports Kurniawan was convicted Thursday of defrauding clients out of millions of dollars, which they shelled out for bottles of "purportedly rare and sought-after wines that were actually old bottles of wine mixed together, complete with fake labels."

The jig was up when, following a raid of Kurniawan's Los Angeles-area home, files were found on the wine dealer's computer that included scanned images of old wine labels, the Times reports. His home also apparently resembled a "winemaking factory," as there were bottles scattered everywhere.

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.