Anyone who had a funny tasting Budweiser in China over the past couple months might want to click elsewhere now. Video of an underground beer-counterfeiting factory in Dongguan, China, shows the disturbing practices of a group of beer forgers who were busted in early May.
The video, which was circulated on the messaging app WeChat and collected by Shanghaiist, shows people with bare hands dunking cans into a tub of foamy liquid. Then the cans are put on a conveyor belt, where tops were pressed on. Those cans were then sent out to unknowing drinkers in a country where Budweiser is the third biggest beer brand.
According to city authorities who shut down the operation on May 5, the counterfeiters pushed out 600,000 cans of Bud a month. Unlike fake wine forgeries a la Rudy Kurniawan, these fraudsters were going for volume, not (fake) value. Considering Budweiser has 14 out of the company’s 15 foreign breweries in China, volume of the “King of Beers” isn’t hard to push.
h/t: Shanghaiist
