Voor 200.000 Hong Kong-dollar wijn langs de weg dumpen. Wie doet dat? Dat zoekt de Chinese politie samen met wijnexperts uit. Het gaat om een partij rode Chileense wijn in kratten. E staat op; Cono Sur Merlot Valle Central 2009. Lees wat The Standard er vandaag over meldt:

Police and wine experts are trying to uncork the mystery of 2,000 bottles of Chilean red worth an estimated HK$200,000 found abandoned at a roadside in To Kwa Wan.

The wine, in 100 crates and labeled Cono Sur Merlot, Valle Central 2009, Chile, has now lain at the end of Chi Kiang Street near the Hoi Sham Temple for two days, though it was guarded by police last night.

Experts suggest the wine, which has "Duty Not Paid" stickers on the bottles, was left there by would-be smugglers with second thoughts.

They are reckoned to have dumped it because they decided the return on smuggling an ordinary wine out of Hong Kong - likely to the mainland - was not worth the risk and the effort.

There was also a suggestion that a quarrel among the smugglers led to them unloading it in Chi Kiang Street.

Police, who noted that three cases had been opened and some bottles were missing, classified their investigation as one into "unclaimed property."

A note placed on the cases by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department warned that the wine would be removed if not claimed by 10am yesterday, but there had been no move last night.

Wine dealers said a single bottle would sell for at least HK$100 in Hong Kong - which since 2008 has allowed wine to be imported duty free - though it would be much more in, for example, the mainland.

Jointek Fine Wines senior shop manager Sunny Wong Tao-man said it is "absolutely possible" the wine was intended to be smuggled out of Hong Kong.
Wong, who has 18 years' experience in the wine trade, noted that duty on wine arriving legally in the mainland is 48.5 percent, and then there is a second levy by a provincial government.

Before then, customs officers can take three to four bottles from a carton of 12, citing the need for a quality control check.

"Someone out there must be trying to skip this complicated process," he said.

Feldman Wine Auctions managing director Sam Chiu G-ling said the wine had probably been set for smuggling to the mainland bearing in mind the huge duties there.

But against that, he added, was the question of smuggling a wine of a quality that was not worth the effort.

Puzzling over the "bizarre situation" of the To Kwa Wan find, he asked: "Who would take the risk of trying to smuggle a low range of red wine from Chile that costs only HK$100 a bottle?"

The mysterious case of the wine cases also had a neighborhood grocery store owner named Wong scratching his head in puzzlement.

"I've never seen anything like this before," he said, "and I've been living here for 42 years."