Wood Chen, the former chairman of electronics giant Yageo Corporation, was linked to a fake wine scandal last summer.
Taiwanese media outlet Business Today received a tip-off claiming that the country’s elites had been caught up in a series of fake wine transactions.
The wines allegedly pointed to Wood Chen, who has been selling off his collection to friends, either directly or via merchants, since 2019.
In a bid to clear his name, the billionaire collector brought in Downey and her team at Chai Consulting to inspect the wines.
Downey, a Californian consultant who has advised the FBI and the US Department of Justice in high-profile wine fraud cases, headed to Taipei for the inspection.
Wood Chen, the brother of renowned entrepreneur Pierre Chen, has approximately 50,000 bottles in his collection. Around 20,000 of them were stored in Taiwan.
Downey examined the list and selected the 1,500 wines that she deemed most likely to be counterfeits.
She and six members of her team spent six days examining wine labels and cork quality, and their findings were recorded on the blockchain.
Downey ultimately determined that 130 of the wines were ‘definitively counterfeit’. She also identified 15 ‘problematic’ bottles.
After crunching the numbers, she estimates that 1% to 2% of the wines in Wood Chen’s collection are counterfeit.
Downey described that as an ‘exceptionally low’ counterfeit rate, adding that it is ‘one of the lowest rates observed in over two decades of inspecting collections for auction houses’.
Based on the typical counterfeit rates in the fine wine market, she was expecting 8-10% of the wines to be counterfeit.
Downey said: ‘Collectors with extensive fine and rare wine collections, especially those purchasing from secondary or grey markets, very likely have counterfeits.
‘Unfortunately, today even trusted supply chains are affected. And with the recent advanced, professionally produced counterfeits, even careful, reputable merchants are being deceived.
‘Thus, discovering such a small number of counterfeits among 1,500 very high-risk bottles is an extraordinarily low finding. Wood Chen is an exceptional collector with an impressive collection.’
Suspicions over Wood Chen’s collection arose when the country’s elites recently gathered at a party to enjoy wines from different vintages, plots and wineries in Burgundy last year. The wines apparently looked and tasted almost identical, which set alarm bells ringing.
Retailer Top 100 Wine reportedly agreed to reimburse clients that purchased the wines. Huang Huihong, who runs Top 100 Wine, allegedly revealed that the wines were sourced from Wood Chen.
The billionaire collector defended his cellar when confronted by Taiwanese reporters, saying that ‘you cannot conclude that all the wines are fake from one tasting session’.
Downey backed his claims and called the accusations against him ‘baseless’. She believes he has been ‘victimised’.
Wood Chen attended her company’s two-day wine fraud workshop in Hong Kong back in 2017, and they have been in regular contact ever since.
Downey called him ‘one of the most careful and thoughtful collectors in the world’ and said he has her ‘utmost respect’.
Related articles
Singapore wine executive charged with committing £7.5m en primeur fraud
Fraudster sentenced over $13m wine investment scam in US
Chinese fraudster jailed for five years for bottling fake Lafite and Petrus
The post Fraud investigator says Wood Chen’s collection has low counterfeit rate appeared first on Decanter.
Source : https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/fraud-investigator-says-wood-chens-collection-has-low-counterfeit-rate-550090/
