Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Wednesday 21 July 2010

Pancho Campo MW: removed from Interpol's wanted list


Last September I broke the news, along with Adam Lechmere, on decanter.com that Pancho Campo MW was wanted by Interpol. I subsequently made several posts about this story on Jim's Loire. I have been informed and have verified this evening that Pancho Campo's name has been removed from Interpol's wanted list.

At this time it is not clear whether Campo's conviction in Dubai in June 2003 and one year prison sentence and subsequent deportation has been quashed or set aside. I am seeking clarification on this and will update this post once this has been clarified.

22nd July 2010
I understand from Paulina Campo-Bacque, the executive director of The Wine Academy of Spain that the lawyer of the Butler family (Campo's in-laws) who will be handling all matters related to the case. I have asked Campo-Bacque to forward some questions to this family lawyer and am awaiting a response.

28th July 2010
I'm still awaiting a response.

3 comments:

Douglas Blyde said...

Astonishing.

Hervé Lalau said...

Seems all wine sites have published Campo's communiqué without further investigation. Strange.

Jim's Loire said...

To an extent, Hervé. As detailed above I have sent questions to be forwarded to the Butler family lawyer, who I was informed would be dealing with any matters arising. I have yet to receive a response.

I have also contacted Interpol and am awaiting a response to my questions.

Someone from the Associated Press Paris bureau did contact the Interpol press office. They were told that Interpol do not stop wanted notices themselves. As I understand the request has to come from one of the members of Interpol. In this case presumably from the UAE.

I assume that this is also the case for putting wanted notices onto the Interpol system.

If this is indeed how the procedure works and I am seeking clarification on this, it would seem unlikely that Interpol would say they had made a mistake, since they would have been responding to a request from one of their members, which in this case would have been the UAE.

Furthermore there is no documentary evidence that I know of at present to back Campo's claim that Interpol has admitted making an error.

Were Interpol to admit making a mistake in a case like this, then they could presumably lay themselves open to being sued for damage to reputation etc.

I await the responses from Interpol and Campo's lawyer with interest.