The successful operation was made possible by the responsible Mexican authorities. They had provided the German Customs Criminal Investigation Office with the tip that the shipment in the tank container was possibly counterfeit tequila. Officials of the Hamburg Waltershof Customs Authority then stopped the tank container for inspection.
Samples of the intercepted tequila were then sent directly to the responsible Mexican regulators, the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (CRT), as well as the customs laboratories at the Bildungs- und Wissenschaftszentrum (BWZ) in Berlin. The CRT, which issues permits for and carefully monitors the production of tequila in Mexico, quickly confirmed the suspicion of counterfeiting. The BWZ, which chemically analysed the liquor, also concluded that the tequila was not authentic.
“We’ve never seen such a massive quantity of counterfeited tequila before,” said Udo Storch, spokesman of the Hamburg Harbour Central Customs Authority. Shortly after being confiscated, the counterfeited tequila was disposed of in a waste water facility west of Hamburg under the supervision of the customs authority. The event was attended by the Mexican ambassador to Germany, Patricia Espinosa Cantellano; the President of the CRT, Miguel Angel Dominguez Morales; and the Adjunct General Manager of the Mexican Institute for Commercial Property, Alfredo Rendón Algara.
Only liquor distilled from the blue agave cactus and originating from specific regions of Mexico may be sold as tequila. The confiscated liquor consisted of roughly 65% alcohol, whereby tequila usually contains between 38% and 40%.
