CRIME | Restaurant head waiter detained for substituting pricey wines

The Judiciary Police (PJ) has detained a 30-year-old former restaurant head waiter who allegedly replaced high value wines with low-cost ones and has profited more than RMB800,000 from the act.
Authorities were notified of the case on Monday, when a representative from a hotel in the central area approached PJ headquarters with the suspect. The representative claimed that the suspect was a head waiter in their hotel’s French restaurant until November last year.
During stock-keeping in December, the restaurant found the labels of 50 bottles of red and white wines were different from the usual ones. After checking the wines, the restaurant suspected that the labels of more expensive wines had been attached to low-cost wines. They also suspected that it is the former employee who committed the act. The restaurant then inquired about the issue to the suspect, who allegedly confessed the wrongdoing. He also promised to turn himself in on Monday.
During the investigation, the restaurant told PJ that the 50 bottles of wine cost a total of HKD2.13 million. The suspect claimed that when he was working in the restaurant, he took those bottles and searched the internet for a sample of their labels. After creating the labels with images found, the man had bought 50 bottles of wine worth around MOP100 each on which he used the home-
made images.
As for those 50 bottles he stole from the restaurant, the man was alleged to have sold 43 of them on the Internet with a profit of RMB804,250 from them. The remaining seven bottles were in the hands of a Japanese commission merchant. The suspect also claimed to have spent all the money. PJ will hand the man over to the Public Prosecution Office.