Chinese Factory Workers Busted Making Fake Budweiser Beer

Do you really know what you're drinking when you crack open a cold one? A video of counterfeit Budweiser cans being produced in an underground factory in China has gone viral after being posted on the social app WeChat, and then making the rounds on YouTube. Thankfully, the shady factory in Dongguan was busted by authorities on May 5 and shut down.

The alarming video features footage of a room full of workers dipping punctured Budweiser cans into unknown sudsy contents of what is presumably beer. Later in the video, the fraudulent beers are pictured being resealed in what looks like an underground factory, and then in a later clip, the cans are packaged and ready to be shipped. At the end of the video, agents of China's Trade and Industry Bureau are seen arriving at the facility for an inspection.

The Shanghaiist, a news website that first broke the story, reported that the counterfeit operation was capable of producing up to 600,000 crates of fake beer every month, and likely did produce at that volume, while distributing the fake beer to bars, restaurants, and clubs all over the area.

The Daily Meal has contacted Anheuser-Busch about the incident, and this is their statement:

"Every drop of Budweiser consumed in America is brewed in America at one of our 12 U.S. breweries. The video that has been circulating on some social networks is from a small-scale counterfeit operator in China. We have been working with local authorities to shut it down immediately. Budweiser takes great care in every detail of its product and packaging. Cheap counterfeits have telltale signs that they are fakes such as imperfect seals, improper date coding, product name and text that have errors, and poor quality packaging and graphics."

Cleanse the images of fake, dirty beer with your mind with sudsy facts. Here are 10 Things You Didn't Know About Beer.