The scope of the counterfeit branded wristwatch racket busted by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch last month has widened beyond the city, with links extending to New Delhi and China.
Larger racket uncovered
The racket was busted by the Crime Branch Unit III on September 17 with the arrest of Afzal Ansari (40), who was allegedly putting together wrist watches and pasting Swatch logos on them to pass them off as genuine products. His interrogation led the Unit III to another, bigger racket, where three accused — Vikas Jain, Vijaykumar Suryavanshi and Santosh Amrute — were found to be in possession of 5,281 wristwatches worth ₹1.05 crore on September 26.
According to the Crime Branch officers, the watches seized in the second raid were replicas of expensive watches. The brands included Fastrack, Fossil, Rolex, Guess, Rado, Diesel, Longines, Tag Heuer, Tissot, and Cartier, which sell for several lakhs in the market. Unit III then set about tracing the source of these watches.
A Crime Branch officer said, “Interrogation of the accused revealed that Mr. Amrute had travelled to China several times and made business relations with a syndicate that manufactures and exports cheap replicas of high-end watches. Around two years ago, he started ordering the replicas from his Chinese contacts, who would export them by concealing them in other products in the air cargo.”
The officer said the consignment would be first sent to New Delhi and delivered to Mumbai by road. The racket would then move into its next phase. The officer said, “The accused would post ads on online retail portals, claiming to sell branded watches at discounts as high as 75%. Their targets were people from the lower middle-class and middle-class income groups.”
Striking it rich
The accused allegedly told the police that they also circulated the ads on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. They sold as many as 500 wristwatches for anything between ₹500 and ₹1,000 each per day. The officer said, “We are probing the Delhi angle and looking for the accomplices involved in transporting the replicas from Delhi to Mumbai.”
