The ITALIAN GANG

IT MAY
SOUND HARMLESS enough
but wine counterfeiting is no laughing matter. Over the last
few years the business of faking wine bottles and labels has
grown substantially and become a very lucrative industry.
The problem is so serious that twenty-five members of the
Italian military police recently became qualified as
sommeliers in order to combat fraud in the wine industry.
Elite officers of the Carabinieri del Nac (anti-fraud
squad), recently passed exams given by the Italian
Sommeliers Association, based in Rome. The combat-ready
sommeliers will use their new-found expertise as part of
their existing responsibilities for Italy’s Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Forestry. They will also conduct
special investigations and act as liaisons to the European
Commission’s Anti-Fraud Office. “The opportunities to
perpetrate fraud are limited only by man’s imagination,”
said Colonel Pasquale Muggeo, one of the wine-trained
officers. “What we have learned will enable us to offer
stronger support to the wine industry.” Muggeo said their
training had already helped the policemen in uncovering a
ring of Brunello and Barbaresco counterfeiters operating in
Germany and Denmark. He confirmed that although they might
be disguised as civilians in order to carry out their
investigations, the teams would be armed, as usual for
military police. Muggeo discounted the suggestion that teams
of Carabinieri would pose as sommeliers. “The ability to
remain lucid is at the core of every undercover activity,
without exception,” he said. “We do not drink on the job.”
But now that all of these officers are also sommeliers, it’s
highly likely that their palates have become much more
discerning. No schlock for these officers!