The Bangalore East Division police busted a racket where fakes of branded liquor were being manufactured for supply to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
A team of officials, on a tip off, raided a makeshift shed at Prakruti Layout in Bagalur and recovered 6,000 bottles of spurious liquor, 3,000 litres of spirit and two bottling machines, besides hundreds of empty bottles.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (East division) Krishna Bhat, though the police managed to arrest two persons, the kingpin, Kumar, was on the run.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the gang has been in the business for a couple of months. The suspects said they had shifted base to Bangalore after a crackdown by the Tamil Nadu Excise Department last year.
They said they used to buy spirit from a city industrialist, add colour and pass it off as branded liquor with fake labels.
The liquor was then sold at throwaway prices in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
Search for source
“We are investigating to find out the source of the spirit and how they used to smuggle the bottles to the neighbouring States,” Mr. Bhat said.
