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Counterfeiters now targeting premium liquors

A policeman keeps a close eye on some of the bottles of liquor suspected to be contraband. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By  Nicholas Komu

What you need to know:

  • While authorities train their eyes on cheaper brands, fraudsters are throwing them off track by going for expensive and luxurious whiskies, brandy and vodka.
  • Whisky brands going for as much as Sh9,000 per 750-millilitre bottle lack basic certification.
  • A huge section of the premium brands in the market currently is suspected to have been smuggled into the country.

That unusually nasty hangover you feel when you wake up after chugging your favourite pricey whisky brand could be because you consumed a counterfeit drink.
This is because counterfeiters have now started targeting premium liquors in a new smuggling and counterfeiting scam.
With intensified crackdowns on illicit and counterfeit brews still ongoing, unscrupulous traders are now targeting expensive alcohol brands in the market.

BATCH NUMBERS
While authorities train their eyes on cheaper brands, fraudsters are throwing them off track by going for expensive and luxurious whiskies, brandy and vodka.
In the new scam, illegal manufacturers are packaging substandard alcohol in premium brand bottles complete with Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) excise stamps and even manufacturer and distributor batch numbers even as the latter disowned some of the brands insisting the batch numbers were fake.

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