Editor’s Note: State and local tobacco taxes have fueled a massive black market in illicit tobacco. Will rising US alcohol taxes spur a deadly domestic black market in counterfeit spirits?
From: TheJournal.ie
Counterfeit vodka worth almost half a million seized at farm in Louth
Counterfeited vodka can cause breathing difficulties, liver damage or blindness.
AROUND 12,000 LITRES of ‘vodka’ type spirits have been seized in a raid on a premises and farm buildings in Co Louth yesterday evening.
Revenue officers and armed gardaí from Drogheda seized 586 litres of finished ‘vodka’ type product that was bottled, sealed, labelled and boxed, along with 4,000 litres of the raw alcohol product at a large-scale plant.
Read Complete Article
Most disturbing here is the use of denatured industrial alcohol. Which is alcohol with an added substance that makes it unfit for human consumption. For example: alcohol used in production of industrial cleaners, anti-freeze or windshield washer fluid.
The process of turning industrial formulated alcohol into fake vodka, whiskey and other alcoholic beverages is a favorite process for these alcohol counterfeiters throughout the world. Please report and provide tips for these operations as well as any retail liquor violations to http://www.SafeProof.org
Very true! See http://www.thecre.com/cc/?p=2601, http://www.thecre.com/cc/?p=6220, http://www.thecre.com/cc/?p=2081, http://www.thecre.com/cc/?p=3664, http://www.thecre.com/cc/?p=6506 for examples. Also see, Counterfeit Products, Genuine Harm: How Intellectual Property Theft Fuels Organized Crime While Undermining American Communities https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2711936