TIRUCHY: In a major operation, sleuths of the Enforcement Bureau Crime Investigation Department (EBCID) of the Tamil Nadu police busted a spurious liquor racket allegedly operating from Karnataka.
According to an official release, a team headed by Crime Investigation Unit (CIU) Inspector J Raman secured S Murugan alias Murugavel of Tiruchy on September 3 while he was transporting spurious liquor. Following this, the team searched a shed at E Pudhur in Tiruchy and seized 644 bottles of spurious liquor.
Inquiries revealed that Murugan had got the bottles of spurious liquor transported to Tiruchy from Bengaluru in plastic drums through a logistics firm and sold the contraband in the city.
On September 5, acting on inputs, a CIU team from Madurai searched a house in Virudhunagar and seized 264 bottles of spurious liquor. Local resident MK Veeraraj was secured in connection with the seizure.
Similarly, a total of 1,784 liquor bottles and holograms were seized from Tirunelveli, Krishnagiri, Dindigul, Sankarankoil and Marthandam.
A total of 14 people have so far been arrested and remanded in connection with the EBCID operation.
Further inquiries revealed that one of the accused, Marirajan of Thoothukudi, who settled in Goa, was primarily behind the transportation of spurious liquor from Karnataka. He had retired from the army and was a history sheeter. Kesavamoorthy of Bengaluru, another accused, labelled the contraband as ‘for defence service only’ and concealed it inside plastic drums marked ‘chemical’ outside before it was distributed to various places across Tamil Nadu over the past one year, the release stated.
The operation was directly supervised by A Amalraj, ADGP, EBCID, and NM Mylvahanan, IGP of Enforcement. State DGP Shankar Jiwal commended the special teams.