Man jailed for selling phony Moutai

A former supermarket employee has been sentenced to eight years in prison for selling phony Moutai brand liquor to a hotel manager in Baoshan district, a local court said Tuesday.

The defendant, Fang Ziqiang, was charged with fraud for selling 600 bottles of cheap booze to the manager for 770 yuan ($126) each under the pretext that they were bottles of the famous brand of Chinese liquor, according to a press release from the Baoshan District People's Court. Fang made a profit of 402,000 yuan on the sale.

Fang was able to convince the hotel manager that the liquor was genuine Moutai by posing as a purchasing manager for the Trust-Mart supermarket chain, the court said. The defendant had worked for the chain for seven years before he quit.

In July 2010, Fang learned that a hotel desperately needed bottles of Moutai. Fang told the hotel manager, surnamed Wu, that he could help him obtain the liquor. On July 21, Fang sold 600 bottles of liquor that he bought for 100 yuan each to Wu out of the basement of the Trust-Mart on Qilianshan Road in Putuo district.

Wu called the police after he discovered that the liquor wasn't genuine Moutai, but Fang had already fled the city.

Police in Hefei, Anhui province, arrested Fang at a high-end restaurant on March 19.