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When hear the term bootlegging, what jumps into your mind? Maybe names like Al Capone, Bill McCoy, âLuckyâ Luciano, and George RemusâŚthat were famously associated with the Prohibition era. Or maybe you think about the role moonshine played in American History. But what about the infamous 5-Hour Energy bootlegging case from a decade ago? OhâŚyou hadnât heard of arguably the craziest crime story involving the energy drinks market before just now? From late-2009 until supposedly October 2012, an 11-person operationâŚled by a husband-and-wife team, placed into interstate commerce nearly 4 million bottles of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy. Accused initially of relabeling Mexican bottles of 5-Hour Energy and reselling them in the U.S. market, it was later discovered that blank bottles were filled with unknown liquids after authentic 5-Hour Energy inventory became unavailable. But adding even more craziness to this story, President Trump commuted the wifeâs sentence in early 2021âŚand one of the original perpetrators was just extradited from Italy after being a fugitive since the initial arrests.
By Joshua Schall4.8
1717 ratings
When hear the term bootlegging, what jumps into your mind? Maybe names like Al Capone, Bill McCoy, âLuckyâ Luciano, and George RemusâŚthat were famously associated with the Prohibition era. Or maybe you think about the role moonshine played in American History. But what about the infamous 5-Hour Energy bootlegging case from a decade ago? OhâŚyou hadnât heard of arguably the craziest crime story involving the energy drinks market before just now? From late-2009 until supposedly October 2012, an 11-person operationâŚled by a husband-and-wife team, placed into interstate commerce nearly 4 million bottles of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy. Accused initially of relabeling Mexican bottles of 5-Hour Energy and reselling them in the U.S. market, it was later discovered that blank bottles were filled with unknown liquids after authentic 5-Hour Energy inventory became unavailable. But adding even more craziness to this story, President Trump commuted the wifeâs sentence in early 2021âŚand one of the original perpetrators was just extradited from Italy after being a fugitive since the initial arrests.

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