A shopkeeper was on Friday hauled before the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court for selling counterfeit Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum and Appleton Special.

Calvin Francis, 33, of Largie Road in Kingston, was arrested on September 8 after police raided his shop at the intersection of Largie Road and Barbados Road and found a crate of the fake liquor with 12 bottles of rum.

The police said that Largie told them when he was cautioned, "Officer me know mi wrong but is man on a bike mi just buy dem from to mek a money afa it."

According to the police statement, after the bottles of rum were checked several discrepancies were found.

The caps on the fake rum were broken and were resealed with glue, the words Wray & Nephew were wrongly spelt with some of the words missing and the fill level and batch number were also different from the original product

Francis was subsequently charged with breaches of the Excise Duty Act and misleading and deceptive conduct.

On Friday, when Francis appeared in court, he pleaded guilty to both charges.

"Your Honour, I have shop and I heard about a drink called E10 drink that everybody was drinking so I bought it and mix it," he confessed.

Francis' station bail was then extended by Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey for him to return to court on October 7 for sentencing.

— Tanesha Mundle