Counterfeit liquor season approaches

Nearing Tet celebrations every year, the highest “business season” for counterfeit liquor makers arrives, when demand for liquor rises dramatically. Their methods and secrecy may surprise.

Counterfeit liquor is now the main product of many villages. These products are flooding the market so much so that a counterfeit liquor maker claims that popular liquor brands with prices of up to 500,000 dong/bottle are all counterfeit.

Saigon Tiep Thi reporters saw with their own eyes the workshops where counterfeit liquor is made in small corners of toilets and unhygienic kitchens. After leaving the workshops, these liquors made in terrible conditions become luxurious bottles of liquor for family parties.

Anh’s workshop is just a 4 square metre garret in HCM City. He remarked that all of his fortune is gathered in this small space.

What he calls his fortune consists of bottles, big decanters, knives, funnels, chemical substances and especially, labels of well known brands.

Anh described how “XO” or “VSOP” liquor is made from white alcohol and some extracts. Cheaper products are mixtures of chemical substances and industrial alcohol.

When asked about the labels for well known brands, Anh replied that the labels are imported from China.

“You can import everything and however much you want from China,” Anh revealed. “If you have a big scale of production, you can also import the bottles from China as well.”

It takes only 15 minutes to produce a bottle of liquor. All the work of cleaning bottles, pouring the liquid, and labeling are done manually.

While the world’s famous liquor producers have to use high-tech bottling methods, Vietnamese workers do this with very simple tools like knives, scissors and hair driers.

Counterfeit liquor makers have a very large consumption market, including HCM City and neighbouring provinces. Of course, the prices at which they sell to retailers are very low, just 100,000-200,000 per bottle, while the retail price is always triple.

The enormous profits explain why so many people take this job and why it is very difficult to break the rings of counterfeit liquor makers and traders.

Liquor makers, mostly from other provinces, always live in rented rooms and move constantly. They make the liquor at one place and store the products at others. They also move their workshops regularly.

An investigator observed that it takes some eight months to raze just one gang of counterfeit liquor producers.

VietNamNet/SGTT

Tags: Vietnam business news, Vietnam counterfeit liquor, Vietnam trade