Epilogue: Constellation Sues Corona Mega Counterfeiter
A little more than a year ago, I presented a mystery.
En Route to Oceanside, an unincorporated town of 361, we stopped in Tillamook for dinner, selecting a Mexican restaurant I will not name in case it is on the fringes of an international beer-smuggling ring. Our server, who also seemed to be the owner, offered us a choice of one beer: Corona. He gestured at a cooler, but instead of seeing the familiar blue and white, it was filled with 1.2 liter bombers with labels the color of a paper bag. I write about beer for a living, and I spend a fair amount of time in Mexican restaurants, and I have never seen a bottle like that…. What the hell was this beer?
The mystery deepened the more I dig into it. Whatever I bought that night was definitely not regular Corona. For one thing, it was a vastly superior beer. It was a tenth of a point weaker in strength at 4.5%. Thanks to consolidation and antitrust issues, the ownership of the Corona brand is different on both sides of the border (Constellation in the US, Modelo everywhere else), and the beers are apparently different—Mexican-sold Corona is also 4.5%. The label listed Oz Trading Group of Hidalgo, Texas as the importer, which was an oddly bold move for, to quote the economist Stringer Bell, “a criminal [expletive] enterprise.” (As a spicy aside, the apparent owner of Oz Trading is Oziel Treviño, a Hidalgo city councilperson who was found to have committed voter fraud in 2016.)
Thanks to the sharp eyes of reader TM (who may name himself if he wishes), we finally have some resolution to the mystery: Constellation and Modelo are suing Oz.
According to the case against Oz, the charge is counterfeiting:
“The lawsuit claims that Oz Trading, reportedly run by former Hidalgo, Texas City Councilmember Oziel Trevino, imports the imitation products from Mexico for distribution in the United States. Court documents further allege Oz Trading engaged a consultant to fraudulently acquire the imitated label approvals from the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, misrepresenting its rights to use the trademarked features. The Complaint brings claims for trademark infringement, unfair competition, trademark dilution, importation of goods bearing infringing marks, false designation of origin, and false advertising under federal, state, and/or Texas common law.”
And the suit directly identifies the Corona Mega scam:
“While Oz Trading reportedly withdrew its applications for the infringing labels, the lawsuit contends that the company continues to market and sell products that bear the Modelo trademarks, misleading branding, and false advertising. For example, the Complaint notes that Oz Trading’s “Corona Mega” label falsely states that it was brewed in Mexico by “Cerveceria Modelo” and only “imported” by Oz Trading, even though Modelo did not brew or produce the product.”
While this answers at least one question—whether Oz had any right to sell Corona Mega—it raises a few more. Such as:
Where was this beer made?
How did it travel 2,400 miles to the Beaver State?
How did Oz expect to make any money counterfeiting a beer, a low-margin, cheap, and heavy product?
Who is Oziel Trevino, and how did he manage to put together this complex but obviously fraudulent scheme?
Why was the counterfeit beer so much better than Corona and where can I buy it now?
I feel like there’s at least one more blog post in this story, and if I get any more info, you’ll get that blog post.
Unrelatedly: I didn’t want to do a whole post on the tariffs, which in their flip-flopping, on-again, off-again manner, are tedious and unresolved. But I did want to bookmark the event, in which President Trump backed off the massive and varied tariffs he’d levied on nearly every country in the world. Those tariffs were in place for a few hours, but the toll of collapsing stock markets, Republicans in Congress organizing to strip Trump of his tariff-levying ability, and screams from businesspeople worldwide, was finally too much. As he often does when confronted with stout opposition, Trump backed off the tariffs, but not entirely.
He left a blanket 10% tariff on all the countries who were briefly under the “reciprocal” tariffs. He raised the tariffs to 125% on China. (He also claimed that the previous, higher levels would go into place in 90 days, but as with the man offering to sell you the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, caveat emptor.) With existing 25% aluminum tariffs and the $125 tariffs on everything coming from China—including their erstwhile cheap steel—not to mention the inherent uncertainty of these chaotic announcements (ten related to tariffs in the past 75 days), this is hardly good news for breweries.