On August 13th, a customer brought up the topic of “having their own 8200 yuan Maotai swapped by a restaurant” in Shanghai, sparking attention.
According to reports from multiple mainland media outlets, on the evening of May 19th this year, Mr. Wang and his boss entertained clients at a high-end restaurant in Shanghai. For this occasion, they even specially purchased two bottles of Maotai from the store at noon on the same day, totaling 8200 yuan (Chinese Renminbi, RMB). When making the purchase, Mr. Wang took extra precaution by photographing and saving the anti-counterfeiting codes of each bottle of liquor.
Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Wang and his boss arrived at the restaurant with the two bottles of Maotai. To ensure safety, they specifically handed the liquor to the front house manager, Gao Luo. Shortly after the banquet began, the boss whispered to Mr. Wang, “This liquor doesn’t taste right!” Mr. Wang took out his phone to check the anti-counterfeiting codes and found that the numbers did not match the recorded photos. Mr. Wang immediately demanded an explanation from the restaurant, while the restaurant boss insisted that there was no possibility of a swap.
After Mr. Wang reported to the police, the authorities found that the surveillance cameras in the corridor and front desk did not have storage cards installed, rendering them useless, with only the surveillance near the staff locker area working properly. The surveillance footage near the lockers showed the suspicious figure of the waiter Gao Chao repeatedly appearing near the lockers. When the police opened Gao Chao’s locker, Mr. Wang’s two genuine bottles of liquor were clearly visible.
According to Gao Chao’s confession, he only assisted in hiding the stolen goods, and the actual swapping was carried out by the front house manager Gao Luo.
Subsequently, the police found dozens of bottles of various years and versions of “fake spirits” in the electric scooter storage compartments and lockers of the two individuals.
Facing solid evidence, Gao Luo and Gao Chao eventually confessed that from the time they started working in January this year until the occurrence of the incident in May, they swapped more than 120 bottles of branded liquor, including both customer-supplied liquor and all the branded liquors in the restaurant’s warehouse.
Gao Luo admitted that, by chance, he discovered a colleague swapping customer spirits without being caught, which led him to the idea of making profit from fake spirits. He initially purchased fake spirits for around a thousand yuan to try to deceive second-hand recycling stores, but when this failed, he resorted to directly swapping genuine spirits within the restaurant. To cover up their crimes, Gao Luo even brought in his fellow villager, Gao Chao.
Gao Luo stated, “Because we were never discovered, we became more daring. Initially, we bought fake spirits costing about a thousand yuan, but later we only used inferior fake spirits costing three to five hundred yuan as substitutes.”
Currently, Gao Luo and Gao Chao have been arrested on suspicion of theft.
The Maotai swapping case is not an isolated incident. In February this year, Ms. Li from Wuhan, Hubei invited guests to dine at a restaurant in the Hongshan District of Wuhan. To show sincerity, Ms. Li specifically purchased two bottles of Maotai liquor from the tobacco and liquor store, each valued at 2350 yuan. When purchasing, Ms. Li had agreed with the tobacco and liquor store owner that if the white liquor was not opened, it could be returned. Since the guests indicated they could not drink, the Maotai liquor was left unopened by Ms. Li on a nearby chair. After dinner, when Ms. Li went to return the liquor to the store, she was informed that one of the bottles had been swapped. Surveillance footage revealed that two service staff members took advantage of the 6-minute interval when Ms. Li left the compartment to hide one of the genuine bottles in the food preparation area and then took it away from the scene.
Netizens sighed, “It’s a familiar sight,” “Now, you have to take photos for evidence before drinking!” Some netizens also mentioned, “These things have always existed. Around 2012, my friend had a wedding with 20 tables at a local four-star hotel. They had taken all the tobacco and liquor over the day before, but on the day of the wedding, the tobacco and liquor at the event had all been replaced with fakes.”