Trio jailed for stealing fine wines worth 2m pounds: Customers' trust in firm betrayed

THREE MEN were jailed yesterday for the systematic theft of pounds 2m worth of fine wines from customers who believed it was as safely stored on their behalf as money in the bank.

Raymond Burraway and Joseph Mankowitz, who were directors of Greens, a centuries- old City wine company, were convicted of stealing 6,800 cases of customers' wines. Within months of taking over the firm they had removed all but 4,900 cases that remained from the original stock when police came in.

Burraway was sentenced to six years, Mankowitz to five years, and the third man, Timothy Soames, 52, who had admitted selling much of the stolen wine, was given three years.

For generations the trade has relied on trust and had previously escaped a large-scale systematic fraud. But the Greens case has revealed how few safeguards there are.

Customers pay a merchant such as Greens to store their wine, either to ensure ideal conditions, or to be kept in a bond warehouse so that duty does not have to be paid until it is withdrawn for consumption. What they believe to be a safe, family-run company can change hands without them knowing.

Even more reliant on trust is wine bought en primeur. This is the as-yet-unbottled wine of the latest vintage, paid for at a discount rate for delivery when bottled. Wine bottles, other than champagne, have no identifying marks.

The victims included Colin Parnell, editor of Decanter magazine, and Oz Clarke, host of the Food and Drink programme on BBC television. The Marquess of Bristol, currently serving a prison sentence for drugs offences, lost wine worth pounds 15,000.

Burraway, 52, and Mankowitz, 49, were able to defraud hundreds of customers after buying Greens, a struggling firm, in January 1990. Between September and December 1990 they secretly removed 6,800 cases of their clients' wine, vintage port and champagne from warehouses and sold it to legitimate buyers.

Police believe that Burraway had almost certainly bought the firm with the sole intention of putting the theft and cover-up into operation. Mankowitz, an unqualified accountant, may have been drawn into the crime.

In September 1990, Burroway and Mankowitz began secretly removing cases of wine from all three warehouses and the head office. They sent a series of late-night faxes from head office to the warehouses authorising the wine's removal and arranged for a Mr Hill to collect the cases in a company van. Mr Hill, in fact, was Boylan, a friend of Burraway.

To cover their tracks, Burroway and Mankowitz pretended to sell the subsidiary firm that handled the storage side of the business, Greens (Wine Vaults) Ltd, to a John Ryan in October 1990, to shift any subsequent blame for the theft to the new owner. 'Ryan' was intended to be untraceable, and has never been found.

That whole sale was apparently a fiction, a smokescreen so that when trouble came, as it would when they were investigated, they could blame Mr Ryan. No solicitors were involved, Mr Ryan made payments in cash to avoid detection, and used a false address. Most of it has never been traced, but it is thought much of it ended up abroad.

Even the customers who believe some of the remaining wine is theirs face a legal fight to establish ownership.

No order for confiscation or compensation was made as both Mankowitz and Burraway have been declared bankrupt.