Friday, July 30, 2010

Fake liquor blending unit busted

Thiruvananthapuram: The Excise Department on Friday busted an illegal liquor blending unit operating from a house in a middle class residential colony at Menemkulam near the Technopark campus here.

Excise enforcers confiscated 1,800 litres of contraband spirit, hundreds of empty Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) bottles, a bottling machine, fake labels of popular liquor products, scores of bottles of imported essences and permitted food colours to impart flavour and colour of brandy and rum to the otherwise bland molasses spirit.

They also seized forged security stickers carrying the copied signature of the Excise Commissioner and holograph emblems of the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (KSBC).

Excise enforcers arrested Shibu, who was living in the house along with his family, and impounded two cars parked inside the garage. Excise Inspector T. Ani Kumar said Shibu and his associates bought spirit smuggled into the district from distilleries in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and converted the stuff into fake IMFL products for sale in the districts coastal areas. They fabricated popular and cheap IMFL brands such as Old Port rum and Top Up brandy.

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