Chennai, Sep 12 (UNI) In a major operation the Enforcement Bureau CID officers have busted a spurious liquor network operating from Karnataka, seized liquor bottles and arrested 14 people in
this connection.
A release from EB CID here said based on a tip off, an history sheeted offender from Trichy was arrested redhandedly while transporting spurious liquor by CIU Team Trichy.
A storage place (shed) located at in Trichy City was searched and 750 ml x 644 bottles of liquor bottles were seized.
Interrogation revealed that he has received spurious liquor bottles transported from Bangalore to Trichy City in a plastic drum through Pon Pure Logistics and has sold the contrabands to customers.
Based on this information, the CIU team, Madurai, conducted raids at Virudhunagar district and found 750 ml X 264 bottles at a house located on the Virudhunagar-Arupukottai Road at Periyavallikulam village and arrested one M.K.Veeraraj.
The information was also shared with the Tirunelveli City Police and a house located at Tirunelveli City was searched and 750 ml. X 1026 bottles and Hologram – 1 Roll were seized by the team.
Further enquiry revealed that one Marirajan of Ottapidaram in Thoothukudi district settled in Goa was the main organiser of the spurious liquor from Karnataka.
The EBCID team on an information secured one Kesavamoorthy (50) from Bangalore and confirmed that many consignments of spurious liquor bottled, labelled as ‘ for defence service only’ and concealed inside a plastic barrel and labelled as chemicals were distributed to various places in
Tamil Nadu for the past more than one year by Marirajan.
The manufacturing place and the godown were located by the special team in Bangalore.
Further enquiry revealed that all the contrabands were despatched through ABT Parcel Service and Pon Pure logistics from Bangalore.
Based on that information raids were organised to verify the places and arrest the accused in Krishnagiri, Dindigul, Sankarankoil, Marthandam and Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu.
As a result the the accused in different parts of the States were arrested and contrabands seized:
In Krishnagiri Muniyappan, Murugan and Sakthi were arrested and 47 bottles of spurious liquor were seized.
In Dindigul Sheikh Abdulla was arrested and 136 bottles of spurious liquor was seized.
In Sankarankoil Ayyanar and Velraj were arrested and 300 bottles were seized.
In Marthandam Selvaraj was arrested and 11 bottles of various brands were seized.
The special team from Trichy CIU arrested Marirajan from Goa and remanded after interrogation by Trichy City PEW.
He is having a history sheet in Thoothukudi for indulging in Prohibition offences since 2014. Many cases are pending against him.
He was earlier serving in Army and retired in the year 2000.
As many as 14 accused were arrested and remanded so far in this operation by EBCID personnel.
The entire operation was directly supervised by Dr. A. Amalraj, ADGP/EBCID and N.M. Mylvahanan, IGP/ Enforcement.
Tamil Nadu DGP Shankar Jiwal appreciated the special teams consisting of Inspectors/CIU Raman, Elango and Saravanan and headed by Ms V. Shyamala Devi SP/ CIU, for the successful operation.
UNI GV 0735