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SACRAMENTO - United States prosecutors charged a California man with stealing fine wine he stored for upscale clients and then burning down a warehouse holding 6 million bottles worth up to US$250 million ($356 million) to hide the scam.
The US Attorney for the Eastern District of California charged Mark Anderson with 19 criminal counts including arson, transporting fraudulently obtained property, mail fraud and tax evasion following the 2005 fire at the Wines Central warehouse in Vallejo.
The warehouse was south of Napa, one of the nation's best known and most expensive wine-growing regions, and the crime shocked the area where wine is big business.
Anderson, 58, of Sausalito, California, owned a business called Sausalito Cellars which leased a small part of a massive climate-controlled warehouse and charged clients to store bottles of wine there. It held wine for 92 different wineries.
Prosecutor Steven Lapham said: "The allegations are that he was embezzling his clients' wine and that to cover up the embezzlement he destroyed the wine of his that was still in there along with the rest of the warehouse."
- REUTERS
