Ayi Steals ¥3 Million in Wine, Resells for a Fraction

By Jessica Ho

A cleaning lady working for a businessman in Guangzhou stole over RMB3 million’s worth of fine wine belonging to her employer, later selling them for just RMB110,000, Guangzhou Daily reports. 

The cleaner, surnamed Li, admitted to having stolen and sold 80 bottles from her boss’ wine cellar without appreciating their true value.

“I didn’t know the market price of these red wines, every time I sold off 1-2 bottles of red wine for about RMB4,000 to RMB6,500.”

Image via Guangzhou Daily

Li’s employer, surnamed Zheng, is a fine wine collector whose expensive collection included bottles from Chateau Mouton-Rothschild and Chateau Latour. The stolen Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 2003 (pictured above) has been known to sell at prestigious auction house Christie’s for close to GBP2,000 (almost RMB17,700).

The thefts took place between last September and March of this year, but Zheng did not realize that the bottles were missing until June 19, when he started to move the wine to another location. According to Zheng, he had not noticed that any of the wine was missing due to a busy business schedule that requires him to travel regularly.

Li admitted to taking advantage of her boss’ absence, stating, “I stole the wines early in the morning when employees weren’t at work yet and there weren’t many people at the company...”

She passed the stolen bottles to her 26-year-old son, surnamed Deng, who sold them to a Guangzhou buyer, who then purveyed them to a Shenzhen middleman before they ended up in the possession of a Beijing bar owner.

Police have managed to recover only six of the stolen bottles so far, and have arrested the five people involved in stealing and buying the wine. The case is still under investigation.

READ MORE: 14,000 Fake Bottles of Wine Seized in Shanghai and Xiamen

[Top image via Pexels]

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