I read this in a Decanter article today; It seems an incredibly rough way to treat you co-workers. It actually gave me an empathetic twinge...
London fine wine merchants Mayfair Cellars has collapsed with the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds – the victim of a massive internal fraud.
decanter.com has learnt that a senior member of staff, who cannot be named, fraudulently sold some £700,000 of top Bordeaux and Burgundy over the course of four years.
The total replacement value of the wines stolen could be as much as £1.25m, senior buyer Alex Hunt said. The wines were first growth and other top Bordeaux, and Burgundy's Domaine de la Romanee Conti.
The fraud only came to light when Hunt was asked by a customer to release a parcel of 1990 Chateau Cheval Blanc. 'When I went to look at that account I noticed that that rotation number had no cases attached to it.'
That discovery, made two weeks ago, led to the uncovering of an audacious scam whereby private customers' reserves were sold to two major London wine merchants - which also cannot be named - and the proceeds pocketed after siphoning them off the company accounts.
ME: Here is the really horrible part:
Hunt said, 'The perpetrator knew it wouldn't be discovered until a customer asked for their wines, and by that time they expected the company to be so crippled by the debt that we wouldn't be able to chase it through the courts.'
In a bizarre anomaly, Hunt said that while the fraudster was selling off customers' wines to the two merchants, Hunt himself was conducting legitimate deals with the same merchants. 'I would have expected them to mention that they had just bought a palette of such and such a wine from us. It is very odd,' he said.
ME: I wonder what the unnamed companies liability is for being evidently complicit in the affair? It seems they know something wasnt Kosher... In an industry based largely on trust, the taint to their reputations should be substantial, if I were a buying agent at either of these companies, I would be quite concerned.
Mayfair Cellars will not survive the blow. Its main investor, Champagne house Jacquesson, has lost many thousands and will be seeking other representation, Hunt said.
Managing director David Searle said he was 'appalled' for his staff, and for the hundreds of private clients, many of whom were friends, who had been caught up in what was 'a disaster on so many levels'.
He paid tribute to their 'incredible generosity' when they heard the news. 'They were sad to lose their wine, but they were much sadder for us.'
Mayfair Cellars is now in the hands of administrators Grant Thornton. A civil case is in train to try to recover some of the money, a spokeswoman for lawyers Herbert Smith said. She added it was likely there would be a criminal investigation.
ME: I do hope the results of this investigation are made public, this seem like larceny of the worst sort. I assume that most thieves are able to take comfort in the thought of a victimless crime, but in this case the perpetrator EXPECTED his theft to destroy the company over a period of FOUR YEARS! Seems sociopathic to me that he would sell so many people down the river, people he worked with on a daily basis, people who trusted him.
Sorry about such a depressing post, I promise my next one will be frivolous...
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