The co-founder of HUNWines has advised businesses to stay alert, as a number of sophisticated fraud operations have been targeting alcohol producers.

Mark Woollard, co-founder of canned wine company HUNWines, took to social media to advise on producers to remain extra vigilant, as a six-figure order for its range of canned wines subsequently turned out to be a hoax. And after sharing this story on LinkedIn, other alcohol producers commented on sophisticated fraud operations impacting on the industry.

“HUN Wines was contacted by Rouffiac-Distribution and “Jean Marc-Lacotte” with a six-figure export order for wine – obviously we were very happy!,” said Woollard.

“After due diligence and lengthy negotiations shipments were prepared but due to slightly incorrect documentation and a “funny feeling”on the communication, we didn’t release the product when they arrived to collect it.

“We then asked one of our fluent french advisors to call Rouffiacs head office to triple check. He was put through to their finance department and was told that Jean-Marc was an ex director whose email is being used to scam wine businesses.

“They were extremely knowledgeable and clever in their approach – 99% of their communication, documentation and appearance was perfectly normal. If we canned wine in Europe instead of the UK I’m not sure our documentation check would have flagged their errors.

“Please pass this on to any wine businesses that export into Europe. It would have hit us, as a small business, extremely hard. Hopefully it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Have you any stories of sophisticated fraud operations targeting brand owners? if so, get in touch with us to share your story…