Rudy Kurniawan: The Man Who Duped the Elite with Faux Fine Wines

Kyle Risi: 0:00

So next they just suggest that Rudy was just insecure and nervous, like he was overwhelmed by his wealthy friends and that he just wanted to fit in to impress them. Oh god. And that this was all just a harmless way of integrating into their circle and if that was a crime they should lock him up right now! So essentially they do, they lock him up. Right, yeah.

Adam Cox: 0:22

That is a crime, you're going to prison.

Kyle Risi: 0:47

welcome to the compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. in for the very first time, then we are a weekly variety podcast where each week I attempt to tell Adam Cox everything he needs to know about a topic I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing. We cover stories from the darker corners of true crime, historical events and incredible people. We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. I'm your host this week, Kyle Risi.

Adam Cox: 1:17

And I'm your co host, Adam

Kyle Risi: 1:19

Cox. And in today's episode of The Compendium, we are exploring an assembly of vintage vices and vineyard vanities, where the wine is fine, but the truth is even more intoxicating.

Adam Cox: 1:31

Ooh. do you know what, actually, out of all the clues you've given, this one I can safely say I think is about wine. Well, you would be correct. Usually I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but this one sounds like wine. And maybe some lies.

Kyle Risi: 1:45

And some lies. I think you're selling yourself a bit short there. I think normally you're quite good at least. pinpointing in the right direction. Mm hmm. Sometimes You think it's aliens where it's just completely off But yeah today you're pretty much spot on I'm really pumped about today's episode and I bet you will be too especially if you're partial to a classic con Artist story. Oh, yes. So we have done a few of these kind of types of stories in the past I think the ones that come to mind are obviously the Loch Ness Monster Hoax And of course, one of my favourites, the story of J. T. Leroy, the greatest literary hoax of all time. Which is just a mental story about the young author called Jeremiah Terminator Leroy, who just becomes a literary sensation overnight, only for it to just come out that it was all just completely made up.

Adam Cox: 2:37

Yeah, so we're adding another con artist to this list.

Kyle Risi: 2:39

That is correct. But in today's story It comes with a twist, because it's a take on the old classic Robin Hood story, the one where stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, only in this story, our hero is robbing from the rich and essentially giving to himself.

Adam Cox: 2:56

Yeah, I gather that's probably going to be the case here.

Kyle Risi: 2:59

Oh, damn it. But it's still a classic Robin Hood story because the rich are a bunch of insufferable millionaires who have far too much money and absolutely no brains whatsoever, and in my view, they just had it coming. So, on today's episode of the Commendium, I'm going to be telling you about Rudy Cooneyawan. And what is considered to be the greatest wine fraud in history because Rudy infiltrated an exclusive rich billionaire boys club and swindled them out of millions and millions of dollars by fooling them all into believing that Rudy himself was selling some of the world's finest and rarest wines only for it to come out later on that it was all fake. Have you heard of the story before?

Adam Cox: 3:43

No, I don't think I have.

Kyle Risi: 3:45

It was quite big in the mid 2010s.

Adam Cox: 3:48

Oh, what I was doing. I was going out at that point. That was like my peak period.

Kyle Risi: 3:53

Fair enough. have you hit your peak now? Have you passed it?

Adam Cox: 3:56

Like 26, 27. That was my peak. And now it's just downhill. Oh

Kyle Risi: 3:59

God. I mean, you are looking more raggedy, but I love you even more for that. Just get on with the show. So before we get started, should we, get on with, all the latest things? Let's do it. So this is the segment of our show where we segue into a brief foray into the fun things we've discovered over the last week. Weird facts, strange news, or an update about Adam's. Favorite thing. Yourself.

Adam Cox: 4:26

No, not this week.

Kyle Risi: 4:27

So Adam, what have you got for us today?

Adam Cox: 4:28

this week it's actually a public service announcement. Go on. so Wales has warned the public to only call 999 in emergencies because they've had too many calls of people calling up about stuff that is not an emergency. So first things first, what would you deem as an emergency to call

4:50

999?

Kyle Risi: 4:51

There's a robbery, in action, right now, happening, and I need some help. Yeah? Um, let's see, I have gotten my penis trapped inside the drawer of the kitchen cabinet.

Adam Cox: 5:05

Well then, I think, in that instance, then I don't think you should call 9 0

Kyle Risi: 5:09

9. So the Wales Ambulance Service had 414, 000 calls last year. And out of those, 68, 000 were for things that weren't an emergency. Really? And so that means 188 calls a day were not an emergency that they were receiving. And here's some of the things that people were phoning up about. Go on. So One guy had called it up because he had ate too much kebab and he spoke to the operator and said yesterday evening we had some kebab and I might have had a little bit too much than I'm used to and I've got a bit of a stomach ache. Hang on, what I'm more amazed by is that he, what did he, what's the word he used? Yesterday evening. I said yesterday. Oh, I thought you said yesterday evening. I thought it was like some kind of weird take of like an old English.

Adam Cox: 5:56

Oh, I might have just merged two

Kyle Risi: 5:58

words. Yesterday evening, I was, boycotted by a bunch of kebab barons who stuffed my face full of kebab and now I'm full. I quite like the word yesterday evening.

Adam Cox: 6:09

good. Yeah. so that's one. Then another guy got their hand stuck in box and thought that it was a a good idea to call the ambulance. but my favourite one is and it's got the transcript here. Someone called up because they were missing their false teeth. And so this is what the caller said. I have a bottom part denture and I went to clean my teeth and I said, where's my false teeth? This sounds crazy, but I don't know what else to do. Could I have swallowed my false teeth? And the operator goes, so you don't know where your false teeth are. That's why you're calling this.

Kyle Risi: 6:40

God. And the thing is though, you're holding up the line for someone who really needs it, like that guy with his penis stuck in the drawer. So, like, it's good that they do these periodic kind of, like, public service announcements.

Adam Cox: 6:50

Just a, just a reminder, only call 999 if it's a definite emergency, not because you've ate too much kebab.

Kyle Risi: 6:56

And did you say, this was in Wales, right? So Wales had received what, like, how many 911

Adam Cox: 7:01

calls? 188 a day were deemed not an emergency. And how many

Kyle Risi: 7:05

total did they receive in that year?

Adam Cox: 7:06

Oh, so 414, 000 they tend to receive

Kyle Risi: 7:09

a year. I mean, Wales isn't that big. It's at most, a couple million people. Yeah. What are they doing? I don't know. Damn, Welsh!

Adam Cox: 7:17

Losing their teeth and eating too much kebab. Yeah, so that's my latest thing. What's yours?

Kyle Risi: 7:22

my latest thing for this week is a bit of an insight into the global Economics of McDonald's. So, you know like when we go on holiday to a different country and we step into a local McDonald's, which sometimes we do, especially like what we did when we went to Hong Kong. Love Hong Kong. One of the best holidays I've ever had. But after five days of being really adventurous with food, it's exhausting, right? You're just like, I just need something that's familiar and that I know I don't need be like, Oh my god, what is this? Yeah, like bread or chips. Yeah, bread or chips. So you might step into a McDonald's and the thing is though, At these different kind of local McDonald's across the world, they all tend to have a few things on the menu that is very unique to that culture. Like in India, you might get like a spicy paneer kind of burger, if you will, or in Hong Kong, you might get like a shrimp burger. That's one of the most popular kind of items on the menu. And like in some countries in Europe, you can even get alcohol at McDonald's, right? It's not unusual. But this doesn't happen in the United States at all Pretty much that menu is set and a lot of people have been debating the reason why And many have just assumed like it's probably a case of like if it's not broken don't fix it mentality But actually it's more complicated than that. So, according to a former corporate McDonald's chef, Mike Harkins, I can't even pronounce that surname, some guy called Mike who was a former kind of McDonald's chef, so in the US he says that the reason for this is that the US McDonald's is so massive, like it is responsible for a total of 85 percent of all revenue so the other 15 percent comes from all the other branches worldwide, right? So it's just gargantuit. So introducing something like curly fries or mozzarella sticks will have such a massive impact on the global supply for that ingredient that it will take years for the global economy for that particular ingredient to then balance out if they introduce a new

Adam Cox: 9:14

ingredient. They can't even add a different shaped fry into that,

Kyle Risi: 9:17

their menu. Not if it's going to have an impact on, I mean, maybe a different shaped fry is fine, but if it's got an ingredient that's going to upset the supply chain, then yeah, they need to

Adam Cox: 9:26

evaluate that. Imagine something like avocados or something like that would probably disrupt it.

Kyle Risi: 9:30

Potentially, yeah. So for example, in McDonald's, they wanted to introduce a limited edition blueberry McFlurry because of the sheer size of McDonald's in America, rolling this item out to all the branches would use up the world's supply of blueberries and would take years for the supply to catch up and balance out. Really? Isn't that mental? That's how massive they are. So like in one instance, they also wanted to roll out a new lobster roll in America because lobsters quite a big thing like from Maine um, but because of the impact it would have on the supply chain, they could only roll this out to 600 of McDonald's 13, 000 branches across the USA before it started to have an impact on the global supply of lobster.

Adam Cox: 10:11

Wow. So they can probably do it by maybe a couple of states, but doing a national. Update is, yeah, just can't be done in America.

Kyle Risi: 10:18

That is right, yeah. And so menu changes in the US are rare, but, in countries like Canada and Mexico where McDonald's isn't that dominant. They have license to play around with their menu as much as they want to cater for the cultural needs

Adam Cox: 10:31

Yeah, that's strange because sometimes when you go to Italy or Portugal, mainland Europe, you'll find slight differences like, their pastries and things like that. yeah, that's, I can understand how they can get away with those smaller countries, but never realized. And just to think that in America. Like they sell so many burgers and like bread rolls and everything else How they've been able I guess that they've done that gradually to build up to that kind of demand. Yes,

Kyle Risi: 10:56

that's it So imagine it like for example If you put your hand in water and you pull your hand from the surface all the way down It takes a second for the water to then fill in right? Yeah And it's the same within the global supply chain. If you make a change, that is your hands essentially going through the water, disturbing that equilibrium. And it takes a second for it to just fill in and then balance out. And that's, what's happening when they introduce these different new items because they're so massive and they can have such a massive impact on the global economy. so that's all the latest things for this week So. This episode has actually been on my list for ages. And I think even before the podcast started. I watched a documentary called Sour Grapes, a couple years ago. when it was still on Netflix. I think, you can only now watch it on YouTube or Amazon Prime. But I just loved this documentary. Because it tells a story in such a funny, light hearted way. And it's filled with these really hilarious shots. Of these really rich, pretentious millionaires that have all gathered around. these really exclusive wine tasting auctions they're all just so insufferable just watching them taste these wines they're just standing around their stuffy suits agreeing that this is some of the best wines they've ever tasted when actually it's essentially just piss water.

Adam Cox: 12:13

Just like grape juice.

Kyle Risi: 12:14

Just like really poor kind of quality wine.

Adam Cox: 12:16

I guess they're not going to stick their neck out the line and go hang on a minute, if everyone else is agreeing, this is great. This is great wine.

Kyle Risi: 12:21

exactly. But also the story goes into depth about who Rudy was and how he managed to infiltrate this really exclusive, rich. Millionaire's Club, which typically is very kind of clicky and difficult to get into but then how he then managed to dupe them all. But in the documentary they go through also how Rudy was being investigated from three separate angles by three independent bodies like the FBI, a famous wine producer, and a really salty billionaire who finds out that Rudy has duped him and he just goes on this vengeful kind of rampage. It's just brilliant. It's such a brilliant story. But today, I'm going to give you the compendium of rudy Kurniwan, the man who duped the elite with fake wines. Cool. Let's do it. So the star of our episode is a man by the name of Rudy Kurniawan. I hope I've said that correctly. We'll just call him Rudy from now on. So he, his life began in Indonesia where he was born to Chinese parents and Rudy's surname, Kurniawan, that's pretty much a traditional Indonesia name, which his family decided to change to after his family moved to Indonesia because it sounded a bit more Indonesian, which ultimately really helped his family in a country where typically prejudice against Chinese was quite a big problem really. So growing up, Rudy and his family were extremely privileged. They lived in a really big house, they had several servants, and by all accounts they lived a luxurious lifestyle. And when Rudy was the school age, his family sent him off to boarding school in Singapore. Then when he graduated high school, his family sent him to college in the United States. And this is where our story really begins, because soon after graduating college, when Rudy was 20s, he kind of really got into wine after dinner one evening, specifically Californian wines. And at first, he was just dabbling, exploring the different kind of varietals that the Californian region had to offer. But soon, Rudy discovers that he actually has a really finely tuned palate, right? This meant that he could effortlessly identify the different notes and the flavors in whatever wine that he was drinking. It's that kind of classic scene that you see where people are like tasting the wines, they swirl it around before taking a mouthful and they start picking up on all the different flavors like oh there's some like woody flavors of the barrel coming through or like oh I can sense like fresh green grass or that chocolatey note. Do you know what I mean? Yeah and don't you have to draw in the flavor in a certain way like you're sucking in through your mouth? You're right. Because that aerates the wine over your palate and then it brings out all these different flavours. Yes,

Adam Cox: 14:58

I mean, I've been to a wine tasting session and yes, you can taste it a little bit, like the flavour a little bit more. It's deeper. Then equally, I'm just like, can I Just drink this thing. Yeah, I

Kyle Risi: 15:07

just want to enjoy it, you know, so all of this came really naturally to him And even though this is a story of a con artist who swindled a bunch of millionaires out of money If he didn't have this super refined palate then none of what I'm about to tell you would have been possible So by all accounts, he was extremely talented. had an exceptional aromatic memory. And this basically meant that if he tasted something, he would be able to remember it forever. it's the equivalent of being pitch perfect. Where people can recite a piece of music. on a piano after hearing it just the one time. So if Rudy ever tried a specific wine for a second time, he'd instantly know exactly where he was when he was drinking it. He would know exactly what it was, the vintage and things like that. He could even start picking up on the different blends that were within the wines. Oh, okay. I

Adam Cox: 15:52

feel like people can do that with smell. Like sometimes a smell will take you back to a certain memory or place. Exactly, yes. But with taste,

Kyle Risi: 15:58

wow. But with taste, exactly. And he took immense pride in being able to show off this talent to people, like he was extremely proud of it and who wouldn't be? Like, I'd be amazed if he had something like that. And here's the thing that really baffles me, because if Rudy truly had this amazing talent, then why just not go down the honest route? Because it is so rare to have it. he would absolutely Be a superstar as a sommelier or as a prestigious winemaker somewhere in France for a really big kind of house Chateau, so I don't understand why he went down this route But I was reading that people with Rudy's gift Actually make up this, tiny, tiny population of the world. And an even smaller amount of these people actually go into the wine industry. So Rudy is genuinely exceptional. So I don't understand, like, why he went down this route instead of going down the straight and narrow.

Adam Cox: 16:50

maybe more money opportunity? Or he, maybe more fun? Like Setting up your own company or a winery or whatever. It's a lot of work, I'm guessing, when you can just pretend to have some good wine and

Kyle Risi: 17:02

sell it. I guess so. And of course I understand you don't really know what he's actually done just yet. True. But at the end, let's circle back on that. Okay. So Rudy started off just collecting and selling fairly inexpensive wines from around the California region and he decides that he wants to start breaking into the more higher end wines. as a way to upscale and make a little bit more money and everything at this point is pretty much fairly legit and he's also really good at it like his wine knowledge was outstanding and his ability to connect with producers about their wines really impressed them so much so that they were happy for him to distribute their wines often giving him like exclusive rights to do so. So before long, Rudy is building up some amazing relationships with all the big players in the wine world. And Rudy begins to get a glimpse into that world. Many of these people are collectors or traders themselves who often close themselves off from outsiders. it's an extremely clicky kind of world to break in. Even more so for Rudy because ultimately he's not A rich old white guy, right? He's super young by all accounts. He's from Asia and essentially he's an outsider, but his knowledge and his unbelievable talent is what really helps him stand out and start building up their credibility. And so this is what captures the attention of a small group of merchants and collectors who find him so charming. That they start inviting him to these special tasting sessions that they would hold and so that's him getting his toe in through the door and from there He's then able to continue to charm even more and more and he gets deeper and deeper into the kind of the inner echelons of these little clubs. Once Rudy was in the door It was just plain sailing from there because all of the club members were all these kind of collectively susceptible kind of lot where together if one member fell for a trick then eventually the others also followed as well For example, wine can be completely subjective when you're tasting it,

Adam Cox: 18:55

Yeah, someone told me oh this tastes like chocolate And I would go, does it? I'd probably go yeah, sure. And not a long sort of thing.

Kyle Risi: 19:02

Exactly. And that's exactly what's happening here, right? So if one person tastes that particular wine, and they say it's just out of this world, you don't want to be the person to say, well, actually, no, it doesn't, especially. If the person that is saying that has got more credibility, power, wealth, and status than you, right? Yeah, you don't want to be that outsider. You

Adam Cox: 19:21

go, well, you're an expert and I guess you want to seem like an expert. So if the expert's saying this, you're going to not along.

Kyle Risi: 19:26

Exactly. And sometimes these aren't just experts. These are just other collectors, right? That just happen to be more powerful or someone you might want to impress, right? Because they can potentially give you that. step up in society and all of these little tasting groups, they would often give themselves these stupid little nicknames like the burgers or the royal order of the purple palette or the deaf and dumb and blind society. Very Deaf and dumb and blind society? Yeah.

Adam Cox: 19:53

Were any of them deaf or dumb or blind? No, I don't think so. Well, that's a really weird name. I mean, the rest sounded pretentious, but that one just like That's weird.

Kyle Risi: 20:02

It reminds me of, that famous secret society of like Harvard, the Skull and Bone Society. Right. Okay, sure. Stupid people. But the one that really becomes very prominent and well respected within was called the Angry Men's Club. Now, think of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. And it's that weird dynamic that exists amongst all his friendships And they're all like, rich financer types, and they're only friends because each one of them can directly impact the other one's social status. And they're friends because they want to climb higher in society. It's exactly like that. And they're all preoccupied with money and status, but at the heart of all of this is like a Bordeaux. Right. Right. It's the only thing that unifies them all. So this is the club that Rudy belongs to. The Angry Men. And they get their name because they're all so fed up with constantly going to different dinner parties and taking one of the most expensive kind of bottles of wine in their collection, like a really high quality vintage rare wine to share with everyone at the table, but everyone else at that table. He's just brought like a 4. 99 kind of bottle from Aldi.

Adam Cox: 21:10

And so these men are so angry that they formed their own club.

Kyle Risi: 21:13

They formed their own club with other people that like, appreciate the requirement or the need to come to one of these dinner parties with the most expensive bottle of wine that they have. Okay, so yeah, that's it. that's the Angry Men's

Adam Cox: 21:26

Club. Can't believe, they must have better things to do, but okay.

Kyle Risi: 21:28

No, They don't. This is all they have to do. they're really rich. They don't have to go to work. They're like, what are we going to do today? There you go. I'm gonna complain about

Adam Cox: 21:34

my

Kyle Risi: 21:35

friends. Yeah. So they end up coming together with the promise that they would be not bringing any bargain bin bottles to their parties and often the wines that they would bring would be between like one to two thousand like dollars per bottle. Like we're talking serious money. So these were really wealthy men and most of their money came from investments during the dot com bubble during the late 1990s and early 2000s. So they literally had more money. than they knew what to do with. So the angry men would meet up like eight times a year, usually at a high profile restaurant. Their favorite was a very fancy expensive restaurant in New York called Crew. each one would take turns hosting, and this was that person's chance to really show off some of the wines in their collection by serving it all to their friends and just showing off? So based on this, you can probably appreciate how difficult it would have been for someone like Rudy, who is a Chinese national, straight out of college, who's trying to break into this world. So it would be like the equivalent of you starting to hang out with Elon Musk, who owns Twitter. And you're just gay Adam, head of finance.

Adam Cox: 22:39

Um, yeah. I mean, I don't think I could ever hang out with Elon Musk.

Kyle Risi: 22:44

Not now, he's a massive tool, but at one point before he ruined his reputation, it would be something very prestigious to want to strive to, even if you are just Adam from marketing. Oh yeah, put it on Instagram

Adam Cox: 22:57

and everything.

Kyle Risi: 22:58

And so for these men, even more important than the wines was the thrill of just knowing that they were drinking a bottle of wine that cost more than most people would just make in a single month and that very few people in the world would ever get the chance to ever experience that. I don't, I

Adam Cox: 23:15

just don't get this kind of world. It seems crazy, you know, in a way, when you say like a bottle of wine that. most people, or more than what most people would make in a month. I could never imagine spending that money on a bottle of wine.

Kyle Risi: 23:29

Okay, here's a little thought experiment for you. Okay. Right. You're off to Tesco's right now. What's your price bracket for a bottle of red wine for tonight?

Adam Cox: 23:36

Oh God, I'm going to come across real cheap. I would look to see what was, Tesco club card points, and see if there's any discounts. if there's one that's normally 12 and it's knocked down to maybe 8, then I think, okay, that's a decent bottle of wine. Okay. 8

Kyle Risi: 23:49

quid, really. 8 quid. that's your typical price for your bottle of wine? Average bottle of wine at home, yeah. So now it's a special occasion. and you're in Tesco, you're like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get a nice fancy bottle of wine. Mm hmm. What's your price range now? So

Adam Cox: 24:03

I'd like to see it was a deal. Okay. Uh, maybe 10 or

Kyle Risi: 24:07

12? Okay. Now just think of what an absolute baller it feels like. Grabbing that bottle of wine, putting in your basket, label up so everyone can see as you walk to the cash register. People are passing you by, you're making eye contact with them. You're going, yeah, it's a top shelf Ville Maria. Don't you just feel like a baller? Uh. I guess so? Well that's the same thing with these guys, right? Like it's, it's the prestige of

Adam Cox: 24:34

Ego boost. It's like wearing, I guess they got Rolexes, they got a fast car, but for them it's having this really expensive bottle of wine.

Kyle Risi: 24:40

The only legitimate thing about these men's appreciation about these wines is their price tag. Nothing more. And this is blindingly obvious because they would often attend these very public auctions where everyone would see just how much each one is spending, reminding everyone just like how filthy rich they were. So it's just a really gross kind of show of wealth and kind of ostentatiousness.

Adam Cox: 25:06

So does taste come into any of this? Because for me, if I like a bottle of wine, it's the taste, and that's what I will, well, I'll repeat by a wine if I really like that taste. So for them, I wonder if they actually enjoy the wine?

Kyle Risi: 25:20

I honestly think that there comes a point in terms of price, where you'll get to a threshold where there's almost a zero difference. Between, let's say, a 100 bottle of wine and a 1000 bottle of wine. You're then just paying for the branding or the marketing or the prestige of that particular house. Yeah. Says wine or their

Adam Cox: 25:39

chateau's wine, you know? I guess if it's really old then it's been like kept and, I don't know, you're paying for how it's been kept and things like that.

Kyle Risi: 25:44

yeah. You're just paying for the provenance, it's history, etc. So like it doesn't, I don't think the taste really gets influenced. Too much. They say like obviously wines get better with age, but I don't think by the margin that the price demands. They get

Adam Cox: 25:58

that much better because you must be like for a thousand pound bottle of wine. I want to be like tasting. I don't know. Heaven. In a sense of life. And what's

Kyle Risi: 26:06

heaven? Because it's all just subjective. That's the thing. So in my opinion, Mike, this just makes these men just really worthy victims of what is about to go down. Because Rudy becomes a really well liked and well respected member of this group. And to them, he's like a little bit of a novelty because he's incredibly charismatic He's very funny, and on top of this, they are really intrigued by his mysterious background, which he would like often just keep very vague, which kind of just increases the mystery around it. All they knew about him was that he came from a rich Indonesian family who was being given a 1 million dollar wine allowance on a monthly basis. And That's pretty much all they knew about him. there were whispers that his family did own the distribution rights for Heineken in China. Which, to his friends, was like a pretty big deal. Other than that, that's all they knew about him. And so, on a technical level, They were of course blown away by his ability and his knowledge of wine and the way that he was just able to articulate it through language when he's describing the wines. So eventually Rudy was leading the educational parts of these different wine tastings and also providing wine consultancy, about wines that they should be investing in because he was quite a big collector himself at this point. So essentially, while he was an outsider, he was just extremely useful to them in that sense. So eventually Rudy starts like literally blowing millions and millions of dollars buying huge quantities of different wines. He was buying so much of it that it directly caused like a supply shock against some of the wines that ended up driving up their price because he had bought so much of it so there was less of it in the market. And that's exactly what his strategy was from the very beginning because now he could use the trust that he had kind of built up amongst his friendship circle and clients. Along with his wine knowledge and sophisticated palate to convince his friends to buy the now very expensive wine that now only existed in his collection.

Adam Cox: 28:07

He probably picked what just like an average wine or an okay wine. He's Bought up all the stock. Did you say

Kyle Risi: 28:13

millions were? He was spending millions and millions of dollars on wine.

Adam Cox: 28:17

And how, and he got that because of his history with the Heineken or?

Kyle Risi: 28:20

that was Aruba, but he apparently is getting a one million dollar allowance on wine. Whether or not that's true or not is another question.

Adam Cox: 28:27

okay. But he was buying up all this wine. That's such a good idea. I guess it's similar to what we covered in the Beanie Babies, in this kind of you make this demand or this almost like this limited availability that creates this demand. It puts up the price. And if it's this, if they've got all these angry men that are obviously all about prestige, then they're going to want that

Kyle Risi: 28:47

wine, right? Exactly. You're spot on. so at this point, this is where a very famous and very old wine store in the U. S. called Acre, Merrill, and Conduit, I believe. They were very famous for holding these very informal and exclusive wine auctions, usually in very fancy restaurants. They were different because before the auction, it was their USP, that they would serve some of the bottles that they were going to be selling that evening at auction, completely free of charge to their guests. And the point of all this was to Get potential buyers very drunk, very loose. And then they would be in a position where they would just start splashing the cash. And the sales tactic was extremely goading as well. They would often call guests pussies for not buying the wine. Harsh. yeah. These are all like kind of yuppie type style men. Very young, very new money. Still like adolescent. Okay, makes more sense now. Like I said, Patrick Bateman. Yeah. And they would also be telling people like, If you buy this wine. You'll be guaranteed to get sex if you bought it. So it was all very aggressive, very masculine. Basically, it was just one massive dick swinging competition. I

Adam Cox: 29:56

can understand once you've had a few drinks, yeah, your inhibitions lower a little bit. I remember when I, uh, I used to like doing drunk shopping, because you'd go out, you'd come home, you're on like a shopping app, and then you're like, oh yeah, you don't have any Um, you don't have any guilt for buying anything at that point, you just do it. And then the next morning, then you're like, oh, we should have done that.

Kyle Risi: 30:17

It's like that time that I bidded on that, lunch and show at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, not thinking I would actually win because I just thought I was impressing my work colleagues by donating to charity. And the bid was 800. And, after I placed my bid, like, 20 minutes later, they came up to me and went, congratulations, Mr. Risi, you've won. And I'm like, what?! It's, 9. 30! What are you talking about? I've won! I've only just submitted my thing! the evening's not finished yet! And I won, and he stood over me while I had to fill in the form and pay over the 800. Oh my god, that's awful. I was gutted. I was so gutted.

Adam Cox: 30:54

I mean, obviously you get something out of it. It's not like it's, you know, went to charity. It did.

Kyle Risi: 30:59

I have to remind myself that it went to charity and I did really impress my director, my MD. Ah, so Yeah, hopefully she doesn't listen to this and realise going Phony. Yeah, what a phony is trying to impress me. But yeah. So Rudy just decides that this is going to be the ideal environment for him to make as much money as possible. But first, he needs to like impress the head auctioneer who is a guy called John Capon. So he invites John to like a four day drinking binge where Rudy wines and dines him at the most lavish restaurants and events. And in total they consume a whopping 250, 000 dollars worth of wine. And by the end of the weekend Rudy has then convinced John to go into business with him. And essentially the plan is for John to sell Rudy's wines through the Anchor Merrill and Conduit auction and exchange John would then get a 20 percent commission on everything that is sold. So literally all John is seeing are like dollar signs and he has no concern whatsoever for the Authenticity or the legitimacy of any of your wines that have been sold, right? Okay, just in partnership together to make as much money as possible. Yeah, he just wants the money. So Rudy is set, right? So together they sell a shit ton of wine so much so that they start breaking all these different sales records and that results in Anchor Merrill Conduit auction house becoming the number one auction house on the planet. So next Rudy then decides to do something very clever. He wants to scale his little operation up he wants to increase his margins. He needs a particular wine that is very unpopular that he can then buy up and then really drive up the price to a huge margin and then sell it. And his plan is to focus on the demand for French burgundies. They're typically made using Pinot Noir grapes for reds and Chardonnay's for the whites. So if you've ever seen one of these bottles, you'll know that it's got those, that classic slanting shoulders. Opposed to the kind of the high

Adam Cox: 32:53

shoulders. Oh okay. This is the thing, I always find it fascinating when you go through all these things. I'm like, I'm going to really remember this fact about wine, but then it comes to when I drink it and it just goes out the window. It's because you get drunk. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Kyle Risi: 33:07

And at the time, burgundies were relatively, cheap and inexpensive as far as wines go. Mostly because they were just unpopular. But Rudy is about to change that because he buys as much burgundy as he possibly can. this causes a huge drop in the availability of these wines on the market next he starts spreading the word through his circle that burgundies are the next hottest wine that every collector must have in their collection and then through this alone he increases demand. and can now charge literally whatever he likes for these wines at auction. He's gonna make a lot of money. he's smart. essentially, he's just playing the economics game,

Adam Cox: 33:42

Yeah, I mean, it's not just wine. Like, my first thought was Lego, actually. As soon as Lego It's true. Like, I've made money on Lego. My brother does it and stuff

Kyle Risi: 33:50

like that. Adam, all I see in our loft is boxes upon boxes of Lego. I don't see any selling. I don't see any bidding.

Adam Cox: 33:58

Well, yeah, I don't do as much as some people, but you can like double or triple your money. In some instances, you don't tend to lose your money, but if you wait for it to go out of stock, then obviously then there's more demand for people that have missed out on that product. And then you sell it.

Kyle Risi: 34:12

just feel like it's not the same. Like the scale of his operation where he's scaling it up and he's talking big numbers is not the same as you buying a couple boxes of Lego and just waiting years and years. Like he's. All right, I've been proactive.

Adam Cox: 34:25

Fine. Okay. Yeah, I'm not quite the businessman as him, yet.

Kyle Risi: 34:29

So like they say that over a 10 year period, Rudy grew the price of a single bottle of Burgundy It would like typically cost you like 400 on the low end to around 13, 000. What? Like just through what they coined as like the Rudy effect. So he's smart like he's finding these low kind of Price bottles and then just creating this massive demand for it. That is crazy amount It is, it's massive. and people are really desperate to start getting their hands on these burgundies, which were once like so abundant are now just all extremely rare. And you can only get these wines through Rudy and as a result they start nicknaming him the Baron of the Burgundies. And because, I don't know what a brilliant name. Yeah. I think that should be my drag name. Baron of the Burgundies. Baron of the Burgundy. Baron Burgundy. And because he owned like so much of a particular wine called, I think it's pronounced like Romany Conti. He's also then just known as Dr. Conti, which I think is a quite a good villain name. But what really gives him credibility was that he would say to everyone that he has bought so much burgundy over the years that he has actually become a pro at spotting a fake and Because he'd been duped so many times over the years, he would say people could learn from his mistakes by just doing what he told them to do, and only buying the wines that he told them were legitimate. Right. It's this kind of credibility, this kind of extremely great wine knowledge, his business acumen, all these things combined that allows him to now start

Adam Cox: 35:52

doing this. Yeah. Doing this. I'm guessing he's got these like direct deals with these vineyards and stuff like that, where he just goes, yep, I'll take all of your 2012 Burgundy, ship them, store them in his cave and then slowly releases them out or whatever

Kyle Risi: 36:06

So he was telling everyone to buy these wines and because they loved and respected him so much they were really eager to do exactly that because he promised them this investment opportunity when they did buy these wines. And as he started then confiding with kind of these people as part of these clubs, they would also then get wind of different opportunities that he was telling them that he was getting involved in and they want to be part of it as well. So they would very routinely offer him huge loans of money, like 500, 000 at a time. So he was getting a lot of money from other outsiders to also fund this as well. Right. So Rudy at this time. has hit the big time. He's incredibly wealthy through selling these burgundies and he starts looking the part. Like he's wearing custom Hermes suits, he's driving a Ferrari and a Bentley, he lives in a massive mansion in LA. They cost him like 8. 5 million dollars and he is routinely throwing some of the most outrageously lavish parties to entertain all his guests and his clients. And like he is literally, Adam, the king of wine. Essentially. He is a big timer now.

Adam Cox: 37:07

Yeah, and how long has it taken him to get to this point? Like, 10 years. 10 years,

Kyle Risi: 37:11

okay. Yeah, he hasn't been out of school that long, so it's a little bit of slogging, but it's not

Adam Cox: 37:15

I mean, 10 years to own a Bentley and a Ferrari and all that sort of stuff. Oh my god. He's doing all right.

Kyle Risi: 37:20

He is doing really well. But in order to, obviously, continue to acquire this vast collection of rare burgundies, he was playing it very close to the line he was spending more money than he was borrowing and at times he was constantly having to move money around in an attempt to keep his debtors at bay, but somehow he manages to hide this very well because everyone that looks at him just saw a superstar. So a producer takes notice of Rudy and they invite him to take part in a TV pilot. where they follow kind of different elites of the wine and food world around just for like a couple weeks and in Rudy's case a camera would follow him as he goes about his business which is his opportunity to then further raise his profile even more by showing the world. All these expensive lunches and dinners where he would be routinely cracking open bottles of wine that are worth like 200, 000 at a time. So off the back of this TV pilot in 2006 he decides that he needs something big. So he organizes an auction that's going to net him and John a total of 10 million in profit from just that one single auction. Wow. And It goes off without a hitch. It's this huge profit kind of just attracts the biggest collectors from all around the different states in America, and it literally makes international news. But what he doesn't know is that this is also going to be a very big problem for him as well because of the international spotlight that this has attracted. I can say

Adam Cox: 38:49

as he gets bigger, surely more people are looking at him and just questioning what he's doing.

Kyle Risi: 38:54

Exactly, because remember, reputations like the one that Rudy has somehow created in a relatively short amount of time takes others like an entire lifetime to build up. So along with this air of intrigue towards Rudy, There also has come some suspicion, especially when it is announced that he is going to be holding yet another auction. This time it's going to be even bigger than the last, and it's going to net him a total of 24 million dollars in profit. Is he just selling burgundies? He's, I think he's selling quite a lot of different wines, but the majority of it is burgundies. God. And this news triggers a bunch of people to start independently looking into who this mysterious and very talented Mr. Rudy Kurniawanian is. I hope I haven't butchered his name there. But the first person to start investigating Rudy is a guy called Bill Koch. Have you heard of the Koch family? As in Coca Cola? no. I think it's pronounced with a K, spelt with a K. But anyway, so Bill Koch is a member of the infamous Koch family. They're like one of the richest families in America. Now Bill is very young, very eccentric entrepreneur, who's really into collecting fine wines. And he has actually one of the biggest and largest collections of fine and rare wines in the world. One of his most prized possessions in his collection are three bottles of wine that once belonged to the third president of the United States, Thomas

Adam Cox: 40:12

Jefferson. Wow. So he's got, that's crazy. And he's been holding onto that.

Kyle Risi: 40:17

Yeah. Now he acquired these three bottles of Thomas Jefferson's wine through a collector in Germany, but now Bill discovers. by chance that these bottles are actually fake and he is so outraged that he brings in a bunch of specialists to carry out an audit on his entire collection and between the cork experts, the glass experts, the glue experts, they all establish that over 400 bottles of wine in his collection totalling four million dollars were completely fake.

Adam Cox: 40:47

And I wonder how much of those were from Rudy?

Kyle Risi: 40:49

Oh, more than a few. So Bill is determined that he is going to track down the source of every single fake bottle of wine in his collection, which ends up costing him, are you ready for this? Fifty million dollars, which is more than ten times more than the value of the fake wines in the first place.

Adam Cox: 41:05

So he's just got like a bee in his bonnet about this, and I'm like, I'm gonna take down these people, find out what's

Kyle Risi: 41:11

going on. Yes, he sees it as an investment. If he can crack down this big old operation of fake counterfeit wines, which he's convinced is coming from a centralized source, like it's a small group of people can take them out, then it's going to be a good investment in the future. Wow,

Adam Cox: 41:25

to have that kind of money to just go. Yeah, that's another world.

Kyle Risi: 41:29

It is another world Can you imagine being that wealthy? So and like I said, it's discovered that more than a few of those bottles of fake wine in his collection came from Rudy But unbeknownst to Bill the FBI also investigate Rudy after they received a tip off from other Wine collectors claim that Rudy had also sold them fake wines. but the problem is between Bill's investigation and the FBI's investigation, they can't actually prove that Rudy knowingly sold anyone any fake wines, and that is the problem. That is until a guy called Lauren Pon, gets involved, right? He actually belongs to one of the most well-respected Winehouse in the Burgundy region. So Ponsot has actually been in his family for 152 years, so he knows the history of Ponsot very, very well. And he knows all of the wines that have been produced by his family's estate. So Pon, so catches wind. That Rudy has been selling a lot of vintage bottles of ponzo, but what intrigues him is how Rudy has managed to increase the demand for his family's wines, and therefore the value of these in such a short period of time, Right. Doesn't understand how it's done, and he's amazed by it. because it's good, right? People are paying a lot of money for it, which means that he can potentially sell his wines for a lot more. Yeah, sure, so he's actually helped him out. Yeah, essentially. So he decides to look into Rudy and he finds out about this record breaking auction that is coming up later that year and he's curious about which wines will be sold and what the starting bids for those wines will be. When he gets hold of the catalogue He sees that Rude will be auctioning off a huge collection of super old rare vintages to the tune of 820, 000 so partly the reason why this upcoming auction was such a big deal Was that they would be selling wines that most people had never come across before So they were really eager to try these different vintages that were going to be sold at this auction, so as far as anyone knew these were just super rare vintages that Rudy had somehow managed to acquire over the years. But it was impossible for these wines to exist because Ponceau didn't start producing or bottling some of these particular wines that were in this catalogue until 1934. And that wasn't the only discrepancy. There were other wines in the catalogue claiming to be from like 1945, when in reality production of those wines didn't actually start until 1982.

Adam Cox: 43:48

Wow, that's, quite a big difference. It's not like a couple of years out that he thinks maybe he can get away with that. Yeah. He's bottling wine I mean, is it even from their vineyard?

Kyle Risi: 43:58

I mean, the names are from those vineyards. So he's not making up wines, but he's making up the vintages of these wines. And it just goes to show like just the arrogance and the stupidity of some of these people. Arrogance from Rudy's point of view, that he doesn't think anyone is going to, look into this or do their research. But also the stupidity of the people at these Auctions, where, again, it's just testament that they don't care about the actual wine itself, they care about the price tag. Yeah,

Adam Cox: 44:25

only the people that are, really interested in the history, I guess I say historians, but the people that want to know about these vineyards are gonna really know. Everyone else is just there because this is like the best wine to have right now. That's it.

Kyle Risi: 44:39

So really it wasn't until like Ponso, an outsider to Rudy's world, finally becomes suspicious. So in a way. Rudy's mistake was just greed, right? If he had just kept his operation local and small and confined to the circle of stupid, the kind of, the angry men, angry men friends that weren't going to bother doing any research and would believe everything you said, he would have been absolutely fine. But it's because he decided that he wants to break this next record. It got international news spotlights

Adam Cox: 45:06

on him. Yeah. And that's, I guess this is the start of his downfall.

Kyle Risi: 45:10

So Laurent Ponceau flies to New York where the auction is taking place and when he arrives at the auction It's the usual extravagant affair with bidders being handed copious amounts of very expensive wine to kind of get drunk before the auction begins and When Rudy's lot of Ponceau comes up for sale, Ponceau stands up and demands that the auction is stopped And announces that his family makes that particular wine, and that the bottles that are up for sale are all obviously fake. And Rudy just slumps, he is mortified. Everyone in the room is stunned, and they're just forced to kind of withdraw the lot from auction. Wow, this

Adam Cox: 45:48

feels you know when someone says, someone's getting married and they say, does anyone have anything to say to stop this wedding going on? I object! Yeah. I imagine that must have been quite a scandal.

Kyle Risi: 45:57

But wait, the thing is, after everyone at the auction was told that the wines were fake, they were all really annoyed at Ponceau because they all were so desperate to bid on these rare vintages. But it's just difficult to convince the bidders because they wanted to buy these wines for investment purposes or they wanted to get their hands on it because it's a vintage they've never heard of before. But he's like, but the vintage doesn't exist. It's like, but it's a vintage I've never heard of before. Like, it's such a rare vintage, but it doesn't exist. Someone's made it up. We

Adam Cox: 46:28

didn't make it. That is so bizarre. So you've got the guy who's from the company or whatever saying this isn't our product. Yeah. And that they still don't buy that?

Kyle Risi: 46:36

They don't buy it. Isn't that crazy? Okay, these are stupid people. So Ponceau approaches Rudy demanding to know if like he knew that the wines were fake. And of course Rudy denies any knowledge, claiming that he had no idea. And he actually convinces Ponceau that he's telling the truth, but Ponceau is like, okay, fine, you're telling the truth, but I want to know who sold you these wines. Who's your dealer? Who's your dealer? Who's your wine dealer? But Rudy claims that he can't remember, and he says that he will find out when he gets back to LA. And he'll call him back, but Rudy never does. Changes his number. That's it. But Ponceau, refuses to let go, he keeps pushing, and eventually Rudy just gives him a fake name and a number, supposedly of someone in Asia, who Ponceau obviously can't get through to. And so he has no choice but to just go off and investigate. On his own. What's crazy is that this incident doesn't scare Rudy into scaling back at all. he continues to just buy even more wine, continues to throw these really extravagant parties, continues buying loads of artwork and real estate. He just remains completely unfazed by Any of this, and again, it just shows just how completely arrogant. And untouchable, he thinks he is. Do you know what? I think

Adam Cox: 47:49

there is something about arrogant wine people. Do you think? What do you mean? because I went to a vineyard and it was a very nice vineyard locally. I'm not going to name the one because, you know, I don't want to get in trouble. But, um, what does that mean? Well, I'm going to call the guy arrogant. So it was really nice. He took us through the vineyard. And it's a particular grape that's grown in Norfolk. Done very well. And we had this wine tasting session and we tasted all, he then revealed like, Oh, you shouldn't be buying supermarket wine because it's got fish guts in, it's got this, it's got that, and all these additives and actually by the time you put the, like the bottle and everything, all the costs that go into it, like they're not actually making that much money from these big vineyards. And so therefore buying a bottle of wine for 12 or 13 pound, they can at least sell you something that's You know, a good product and actually make a good margin on that. And I completely get that, especially for a local business. Mm-Hmm. But the way he got you to think oh yeah, I'll never buy supermarket wine again.

Kyle Risi: 48:46

Really? I'll never do it. It's all just like a marketing spiel. A little bit like he a salesman

Adam Cox: 48:49

essentially. And don't get me wrong, it's a really good wine. And I would definitely buy that again. Sure. But I'll also buy cheap one.

Kyle Risi: 48:55

Yeah, exactly. I have you have your price range, right? Yeah. I'm, so I'm gonna impress you with a little bit of wine knowledge here. So. The UK wine kind of making industry is, we're actually really good at it. Like we have a great, terroir or kind of ground to be able to grow some of best grapes in the world. In fact, on a par with like, uh, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, because the reason for that is if you go across the channel, there's this big vein of chalk that spreads across into France, down the Loire Valley. down Burgundy area and then of course across the English Channel it comes through Norfolk and then down through Kent we share that terroir, right? It's the same land. So we can produce some of the best wines in the world and as our climate is getting warmer, we are getting way better at it. But the problem is the economics of it all, because the UK applies so much tax to wines that it doesn't make it economically viable for us to export in huge quantities to other countries because it's going to be way more expensive for the same quality of wine that you can get, let's say in France. So the angle that the UK goes is organic, chemical free. Mm-Hmm. artisanal. Yeah. Like those are the kind of angles that we get to justify the price that we charge, for. Wine that's equally as good as what you can get from some of the best chateaus in France.

Adam Cox: 50:18

Yeah, that makes sense. it's a shame really, because there's some Norfolk wines, which are really good. and like you said, like a special occasion, or every now and again, it's absolutely fine. But it wouldn't be one, you wouldn't see that really in many

Kyle Risi: 50:29

restaurants. No, no, exactly. Anyway, we've digressed. So in the middle of Bill Coke's investigation, he discovers that Rudy has been living in the USA on an expired visa since 2003, which gives him the ammunition that they need to get him deported, right? But the thing is, though, that's not what they want. They actually physically want to catch him red handed selling fake wines. And they also want to try and figure out just how deep this operation goes. So someone must be supplying Rudy with these wines, but they just find nothing, also the FBI, they gain access to Rudy's finances and they can see all the money coming in and out of his accounts. And they discover that he is in a ton. of debt. Constantly borrowing money from one person to pay off another person. But what is absent from all of these records are any transactions that might indicate who he's purchasing these wines from. So they are perplexed and without this information, they can't actually pin anything on him. So they don't know what to do like they know he's doing something dodgy, but they can't prove anything right so in 2009 Bill Koch is super frustrated that he can't actually catch Rudy red handed selling fake wine So he goes out on a limb and he publicly reveals that Rudy is a fraud Warning everyone to stay clear of him this Results in people starting to look very closely at the wine that they had purchased from Rudy and they begin to notice some very sloppy mistakes on their bottles, like blatant typos on the labels. Ah, rookie mistake. Rookie mistake. Wax seals were sometimes the wrong shade or completely different colour altogether. And in some cases entire vintages, as we've already established, just didn't exist on the record. And the reason why all of this was coming out now was because of the internet, essentially. it was a lot easier for people to look up these wine details online. But again, it was difficult for anyone to pin anything on Rudy because they had no proof that he knowingly was selling the fake wines. But also, when they contacted him about, having these fake wines, he was always more than willing to just issue a refund. And, that just kept the whole ordeal quiet, because that's what people wanted, right? They wanted to be, like, made whole. And if he did that, then, that silences them, they go off on their way. But the people who were jilted by Rudy started to then step back from him, he was losing existing clients that once trusted him. His reputation was starting to take a blow to the point that the anchor auction house, that's John Capon, they started to refuse to sell any more of his wines at auction, but not because he was selling fake wines. It was because Rudy owed a total of 18 million dollars in refunds that they were like, okay, you've given too many refunds, we don't want to sell any more of your wines. So it wasn't because he was selling fake wines because they were happy to continue to sell the fake wines. That's

Adam Cox: 53:23

great and so corrupt. They're happy to do that, but because too many people were refunding, they're like, obviously they're probably not making a profit. Yeah,

Kyle Risi: 53:29

exactly. There was more than like, there was almost a half of the money that he had to issue in

Adam Cox: 53:34

refunds. And I guess there's also a bad name on their brand who they're reselling. So yeah. Sure.

Kyle Risi: 53:40

But the thing is, though, it's interesting that, yes, you're right, it was a bad marker against her name, but not because of the fake wines, it's because they were losing money. That was more important to them, it's we don't want to lose money, we're happy to issue refunds. It's because I guess they could blame that on the person selling it, because they're just selling wines through the auction house, it's not them. But then I guess people could argue that, you should be authenticating the wine.

Adam Cox: 53:59

Yeah, I guess maybe they're like this attitude where we're fine if it's 10 or 15 percent, but it can't be 50 percent.

Kyle Risi: 54:05

Exactly. And I think the way that they can get around that is like, well, kind of statistics suggest that 80 percent of the wines are fake anyway. And we catch a lot of it, but we can't catch all of it. So maybe that's the way they get around it. Yeah. So meanwhile, Rudy gets himself into a pickle. So he has this habit. of always making sure to ask the establishment that is hosting any of his events at like expensive dinners or lunches and things like that to set aside any of the wine bottles that are served that night then he would arrange for them to post back those wine bottles to his house the very next day. And he would explain that he wanted to keep the bottles as mementos or souvenirs to go along with any notes that he jotted down about the way that it tasted, who he shared the wines with, the date, the price, etc. And he was just claiming that he was a sentimental type, We've all done it before, crack open a bottle of champagne, you keep the cork, etc. It's exactly that. Yeah. And he would just do this all the time, like hundreds, thousands of times over the years. Every single time he would bring a bottle of wine or someone else would bring wines to share, he would always request those bottles. And he would typically do this at one of his favorite restaurants called Crew. And the restaurant would always happily just ship him back the empties without issue until one day after an evening at Crew. The wine bottles arrive back at his mansion where Rudy finds that all but two of the bottles are completely smashed and Rudy is so outraged that he completely blows up at the manager who just like completely apologizes and says we're so sorry this will never happen again because we are no longer going to be sending back empties to customers because it's too much of a liability instead we're just going to destroy all the bottles and so this is a major problem for Rudy and I'm going to tell you why. Yeah, I'm intrigued. So the FBI steps up their investigation, they start tapping Rudy's phone and they start interviewing all his friends trying to see whether or not their stories line up. Now Rudy gets wind of all of this through the grapevine and he's just completely unfazed by it all. So he just reassures all his friends that this is just a misunderstanding and that he thinks someone's trying to bankrupt him because, they feel like he is a threat to them. And he says that everything is under control, please don't worry. So then one morning in 2012, there's a knock on Rudy's door and he stumbles out of bed He opens the door and there's a swarm of FBI agents all standing there with a warrant. when they get inside, they cannot believe their eyes. What was in there? Every single room in Rudy's mansion was set up like a counterfeit wine factory. There were literally thousands of empty bottles of high grade wines all over the house. They find thousands upon thousands of wine labels and stamps that have all been expertly aged to mimic high end vintages. No way, so they find hundreds of litres of adhesives. They find, corking tools to uncork bottles without damaging them. They find detailed notes and handwritten recipes which detail how to meticulously blend cheap wines to make them taste like the more expensive ones. Wow, so this is a big operation. It's huge! They also find buckets of materials like dirt and paints to artificially wear down the labels alongside copious amounts of genuine and counterfeit wines just littering the house. Rudy was storing thousands of litres of wine in vats ready to blend together to create his version of rarer wines along with hundreds and hundreds of wine books to help him sharpen up his knowledge. So the entire house was also set to be as cold as a refrigerator and in the midst of all of this he was living there. With his poor old mum.

Adam Cox: 57:41

Well, she's the one that had to go around every now and again, just like stir the pot and stuff like that. And she's crushing the grapes with her feet.

Kyle Risi: 57:48

Poor mum. So in their rooms where they were sleeping there was just like a single space heater to keep them warm because their whole house was just kind of kept really cold. And

Adam Cox: 57:57

he's got all this money and living like this. He's living in a factory essentially.

Kyle Risi: 58:00

Essentially. And the thing is, Rudy was able to do all of this because he had this unbelievable palette for tasting and remembering wines. so he's blending all these regular Californian wines together to create copies of rare, French vintages. that by all accounts were really close to the real thing. wow, so he's had

Adam Cox: 58:20

yeah, a sip of this wine or a glass of this wine. He's gone, these are the notes. This is what it tastes like. I'm gonna go get an Echo Falls and whatever else off the shelf. And then blends that together and go, yeah, that's about right.

Kyle Risi: 58:31

That is exactly it. And what's really surprising to the FBI is that they had no idea he was actually making the wines. They just thought he was acquiring and selling fakes. They had no idea up until this moment. That he was the mastermind of a huge counterfeit wine operation in his LA mansion With his old mum.

Adam Cox: 58:52

No way. So was there a point where he did buy like out a load of wine to then wait until To drive up the price because it's limited.

Kyle Risi: 59:02

I think it all started out pretty legit And he was like, how do I ramp this up? How do I make more money? that's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, isn't it? So, when this news breaks, none of Rudy's friends or clients want to believe that they had been duped. It wasn't that they couldn't accept that their friend had tricked them. It was more that they didn't want to admit that they'd been foolish enough to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for something Rudy had concocted. essentially in his kitchen sink. That is

Adam Cox: 59:34

unreal. And how is he so much in debt? I mean, I guess it's maybe a cash flow problem, right? But I'm just thinking he's selling something for thousands yet he's probably, his cost of purchase is probably very,

Kyle Risi: 59:46

very low. It's a really interesting question and that's what brings up this idea that potentially maybe he wasn't acting alone. Maybe he wasn't the mastermind because where is all the money, right? A network of

Adam Cox: 59:57

people

Kyle Risi: 59:58

Exactly. So it's a really interesting case. So the FBI charged Rudy and he is sent to jail When his trial starts, Rudy pleads not guilty and he starts working with his lawyer to build up a defense, How is he gonna get out of this? Well, first they argue that, yes, Rudy did have all the equipment because sometimes he'd like to recondition the bottle before selling it. he would just add a fresh label onto it and make it look better. But they insisted that the wine inside was the real deal still, right? Okay. Then they pivot, because obviously that doesn't work, to arguing that yes, he was adept at blending various Californian wines to mimic, like, a six year old French wine. But, was that really a crime? After all, it's all just grapes, right? if he could create something that tasted like the real deal, then why should he not be able to sell it as such? Yeah, personally, I buy that. I think about, You know what I'm gonna say, right? Like fragrances

Adam Cox: 1:00:53

and stuff like that. Think about your fragrances. Yeah, so there are copycat fragrances. there's a number of them out there, which basically mimic. the smell of other fragrances like expensive Hugo Boss or whatever it might be. and they're 95 percent accuracy in terms of the smell. Maybe don't last as long sometimes. Sometimes they last way too long. Yeah, um, but actually they get away with it and they kind of, they don't call it by the exact name, but they say inspired by, I don't know, whatever it is, Marc Jacobs.

Kyle Risi: 1:01:24

So how's this different is the question, right?

Adam Cox: 1:01:26

Yeah, but I guess if he is saying it is a particular brand and then saying of a year, it's not like he's creating Yeah, a new brand out of this.

Kyle Risi: 1:01:36

Yes. So like those copycat fragrance companies where you can buy copies of popular aftershaves and perfumes Which is completely legal at least here in the UK But I guess the arguments against this is about how he's positioning it, he's not saying are copies. He saying these are the real deal But what you said is that with these fragrances it's inspired by. Yeah

Adam Cox: 1:01:57

That would be the equivalent of taking these copycat fragrances and then sticking them in the actual bottles of the, the designer brands.

Kyle Risi: 1:02:04

Yes, exactly. That's what he's doing, essentially. So next they just suggest that Rudy was just insecure and nervous, like he was overwhelmed by his wealthy friends and that he just wanted to fit in to impress them. Oh god. And that this was all just a harmless way of integrating into their circle and if that was a crime they should lock him up right now! So essentially they do, they lock him up. Right, yeah.

Adam Cox: 1:02:28

That is a crime, you're going to prison.

Kyle Risi: 1:02:30

But no one was obviously fooled by this. Finally, they try one more defence. And they do what I think is probably the best defence. And that is that Rudy couldn't have pulled off this operation all on his own, right? They emphasize that the operation involved more than 40, 000 bottles of counterfeit wines And it would be impossible for one person to do this all on his own Interesting. Because each bottle they estimated would take at least one hour of work So other than the mixing of the batches sometimes he would just be soaking off a label of an already expensive wine and just swap it out for like a rarer vintage label, right? So when you're talking about 40, 000 bottles, that's upwards of 40, 000 hours, and they tried to argue that this just was not possible for just Rudy and his old mum to do in that mansion on their own. Yeah, or

Adam Cox: 1:03:20

maybe the mum got some friends over to Thursday lunch and she's I'll make you some I don't know, a nice salad if you can come stick on a few

Kyle Risi: 1:03:27

labels for us. A little assembly line, yeah. It kind of reminds me of that film with Kirsten Bell. I think it's called like The Coupon Queen. Basically. This woman, she's really good at like collecting all coupons and she goes to the supermarket and they go That's gonna be like 165. Thank you, ma'am. And she's like is it and she hands over all her coupons and in the end they owe her money What? And they're like, that was really impressive and she's like, yeah, thanks. But basically she steps up her operation and she gets all these counterfeit coupons and she starts selling them to people and they become millionaires and they buy weapons and they buy cars and they're just these two lonely housewives that start living this secret life of kind of opulence while the husbands are going off to work. That does sound cool. It does sound cool. It's such a brilliant film. I think we should do an episode on it. That could be our next Cotton Story. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Anyway, we digress. Where was I? Wine. Wine. So people say like he was just the front man to a larger operation Who then ended up becoming like the fall guy because Rudy wasn't built to be this mastermind behind something this huge and they brought up just like how disorganized he was That he was always late for appointments. He never paid his bills on times. He was far too Spontaneous or impulsive to pull all of this on his own and they also try to argue that like his incredible palette Was just a lie Really? And that he just managed to convince his friends that he had it and as we discussed earlier when like a bunch of these wine snobs are like all in the room together they'll just simply follow the lead from the most credible person in the room so if Rudy is telling them that it's an incredible wine then it must be true but none of his friends wanted to believe this because admitting this would make them look like fools calling into question their refined palates which they of course Didn't have in turn, do you know what I mean? Yeah. so this theory that he was just working part of a large operation was backed by the fact that they found hundreds and hundreds of pages of instructions that he'd written down in Indonesian. which provided feedback on label design, tasting notes, and how kind of the bottles looked in terms of their aged state. So people think that the Indonesian Mafia was actually involved in this entire operation. I did wonder if

Adam Cox: 1:05:42

there's going to be a Mafia involved. We've seen a Mafia. Well for this kind of

Kyle Risi: 1:05:46

operation, yeah. A Mafia or a cartel. And they believe that just Rudy's part working with Mafia was just all part of distribution. Hence why he didn't have money. Right. Okay. Because he was sending all the money back to the mafia. On top of the wine instructions, they also find like loads of records that he was sending millions and millions of dollars to different accounts in Asia. So the FBI, they look into his family and they discover that Rudy's uncles happen to be two of the biggest ever bank criminals in Indonesian history. And together they had stolen more than 800 million dollars from two different 1990s. And, of course, they were sent to jail, but they escape after bribing two of the guards and fleeing to China. And that's where they've been hiding out ever since, well actually one of them because one of them has died. Right. So, of course, China, as we know, is the global capital for counterfeit goods. So the theory is that Uncle Eddie had been making these wines in this huge factory in China and then shipping the wines to LA where Rudy was then distributing them. That makes sense. It does make sense. It makes perfect sense. But the US government, they don't care about any of this. They just want to make an example of Rudy and they sentenced him to 10 years in prison. And he's forced to pay back 28 million, 28, to all the people that he defrauded. And Rudy becomes the first person to ever be successfully prosecuted for wine fraud in the USA. And what is surprising is that even without Rudy operating in the USA counterfeit wine is a huge problem and it's difficult to track down all of the culprits and like I mentioned earlier on they estimate that 80 percent of all burgundies before 1980 that are sold are all completely fake. So you're not going to be able to track them all down even with Rudy off of the market, Yeah. But they just keep selling tens of thousands of dollars a wine because there's a huge demand for these wines regardless. As you saw earlier on, they were really pissed off when Laurent Ponceau was like, These are all fake wines. They're like, we don't care. We want to throw our money away, which just proves that people just want to very publicly splash the cash to impress all their rich white finance friends. Yeah, do you know

Adam Cox: 1:08:00

what? I no longer feel cheap after this. I will never spend more than 12 on a bottle of wine because I'll know it could be fake, but so what?

Kyle Risi: 1:08:08

It's 12. You're still cheap though. Oh, okay. You're still cheap. Regardless of your price range, you. You're cheap. I like a deal, Kyle. It's a difference. I know you deal. Oh, I'm talking about a different thing. Okay. so Rudy was finally released in 2020 and Because he was technically illegally living in the USA, he was formally deported back to Indonesia on the 8th of April 2021. So in an attempt to try and claim back some compensation for his victims, you know, like the rich white men who kind of like lost a little bit of money, they sell 5, 000 of the bottles of wine that were in his current collection that were actually real and the rest of the bottles, they just smash them to smithereens. And I think this is such a stupid move, because considering the notoriety Of this case, there would absolutely be loads of people out there, they'll be desperate to own a bottle of Rudy's fake wines, just because he's now this famous kind of wine duper,

Adam Cox: 1:09:02

That's true, but then I guess that's not sending the right message, it goes back onto the black market or whatever. But there would be, there'd be a collector's thing going, this is a bottle of the finest, fakest

Kyle Risi: 1:09:11

wine. Yeah, all you need to do is just mark the glass bottle. Yeah. And then it's done, right? I would buy one just to say that I tasted one of Rudi Kurniawan's kind of bathtub kitchen sink wines, When you put it like that, I don't know. It's prison wine, essentially. Also, I imagine there's like a ton of Rudy's wines that still are in people's collections out there But they probably don't want to admit that they've been hustled by this young Asian guy and made to look stupid in front of their Friends and that just fills me with so much joy that they know they

Adam Cox: 1:09:39

know it's in there Yeah, or they're just yeah trying to sell it on or whatever get away with it But then so did if he's got 28 million to pay back. I'm sure that feels like a lot to pay that

Kyle Risi: 1:09:50

do you know what? He's making 720 a week in prison Which is shocking to me. When we were doing the, Lindy Chamberlain episode. I think she was earning like 30 cents a day. What the fuck is he doing to make 720 a week in prison? That's a lot. That's huge. In Indonesia as well. No, he was in American prison. Oh

Adam Cox: 1:10:13

so that is a lot, so yeah. Maybe

Kyle Risi: 1:10:15

he's making toilet wine. Yes, he's back to making wine.

Adam Cox: 1:10:19

Just bottle this

Kyle Risi: 1:10:21

up. making toilet wine in the toilet. And you need to poo real bad. It just comes out of nowhere. One of those poos that just come out of nowhere. You're like, Oh, I gotta go. What

Adam Cox: 1:10:31

do you do? What do you do? I haven't been in this position before, so I don't know if I'm the best to advise. would you go

Kyle Risi: 1:10:38

in the sink? And just waffle, it down. Don't say waffle. Waffle that poo right

Adam Cox: 1:10:42

down that plug hole. Yeah, just squelch it, I don't know. I don't know what you would do. Maybe he adds the flavour,

Kyle Risi: 1:10:48

I have no idea. Let's just hope if he was selling prison wine that never happened. he had good control over Anyway, let's not talk about that, that's gross. but at the same time, like if you're one of those people that did buy one of those wines, like in my opinion, you got what you paid for because essentially you still got the thrill of spending that kind of money in a very public way. You clearly couldn't taste the difference between the real stuff, But you still got that thrill of drinking the wine, reveling in that knowledge that you're drinking a wine that 99 percent of the world would never get the opportunity to try. So, you got what you deserved, in my opinion. Well, not what you deserved, but you got what you paid for.

Adam Cox: 1:11:28

Yeah, you got a special wine,

Kyle Risi: 1:11:30

sort of. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't take away from that feeling in the moment, right? Yeah, I guess so. So, if you are interested in diving into the story, then the documentary today's episode is based on is Sour Grapes, which came out in like 2016. It's made by Reuben Atlas and Jeremy Rothwell, they actually met at Rudy's Trial, and it all started when one of them was making a documentary about ponzo in an attempt to track down the person who was making counterfeit ponzo wines. And they both thought the story was just so extremely novel that they wanted to come at it from this kind of modern day Robin Hood Angle So it's such a great documentary, check it out if you can. It's all done in this very comedic way, and there's some really hilarious moments in it. And there's this really great scene where they're all filming kind of these people tasting some of Rudy's wines that they purchased at auction. And they're all just adamant that this wine is genuine, some of the best they've ever tasted. And they're all tasting the wine, talking about how amazing it is. And then this sommelier comes along, he smells it, tastes it, and immediately spits it out and goes, Oh, skunk juice! And the look of shock on everyone's face when this happens is just priceless. And that is the story of Rudy Kurniawan, the greatest wine fraud in history. Wow. And what

Adam Cox: 1:12:44

if anyone else has been accused of it since? Or is he just the only one so far? he's the only one

Kyle Risi: 1:12:48

who's been prosecuted, Yeah, there's still

Adam Cox: 1:12:50

people out there. And is he

Kyle Risi: 1:12:51

still in prison now? No, he's, living in Indonesia somewhere. I think he got released in 2021 and yeah, he got deported pretty much straight away a year later. I wonder what he's up to now. Do you know what? He's probably dead. If he's involved in the mafia, like he could be doing anything, right?

Adam Cox: 1:13:07

Yeah, but cool. Good con story. Should

Kyle Risi: 1:13:09

we run the outro? Let's do it. And so we come to the end of another episode of The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe and leave us a review. But don't just stop there, schedule your episodes to download automatically as soon as they become available. Remember we're on Instagram at The Compendium Podcast, so stop by and say hi, or visit us at our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com. We release every Tuesday. And until then, remember, in the world of fine wines, sometimes what's in the glass is less about the grape and more about the great pretense. See you next time. See ya.