85 per cent of cases were from Mumbai
The excise department has registered 500 cases of spurious liquor in the last seven days, including 15 cases on New Year’s Eve, following which '1.86 crore in fines was collected on Thursday alone.
Eighty five per cent of the cases registered on Thursday were from Mumbai alone. Following two raids, the officials also recovered 119 duplicate bottles Black Label scotch from Horniman Circle and 1,726 boxes of illegal ethyl from Bhiwandi.
According to officials, they had received a tip off on Thursday that a taxi was carrying duplicate liquor bottles. Their team laid a trap near Horniman Circle in Fort area and first recovered 15 bottles of duplicate scotch. After interrogating the man who was carrying those bottles he led them to the main dealer, following which they recovered 104 more duplicate bottles of Black Label scotch.
“They took the bottles from scrap and poured low grade liquor into them and were carrying them to sell them in Mumbai. In this case we have arrested one man who was wanted since the past one year. He is a repeat offender and was involved in this kind of business,” an excise department official said.
The second major raid took place in Bhiwandi where officers recovered 1,726 boxes of illegal ethyl that were brought from China. The police also recovered illegal liquor worth '2 crore from Border area.
Officials said that though the number of spurious liquor cases has increased this year, it would be even more if they could register cases by using the counterfeit liquor detection machine used by big liquor concerns. The officials can’t use the machine to register cases because the machine does not have government approval. They added some of the bottles that were seized after the machine showed it to be spurious liquor have been sent for the test of Gas Liquid Chromatography (GLC). The GLC report will come after 15 days and then officers will register cases.
In May 2015, the government announced its plan to make it mandatory to have a hologram on every bottle of alcoholic beverage sold in order to check the flow of illicit liquor. However, officials are yet to select the company that will make the holograms. Officials said they have formed 111 teams to collaborate with the liquor manufacturer companies.
