Six people, including four employees of a state liquor store, were arrested Saturday for counterfeiting liquor with water and selling it with counterfeit labels at the state liquor store in Dowleswaram, East Godavari district.
According to Rajamahendravaram’s ASP (Special Enforcement Bureau, Liquor and Sand) Sumit Garud, the defendants were identified as outlet supervisor Anala Sateesh and the three salespeople D. Durga Lakshmi Kumar, M. Naga Raju and Kolati Venkatesh. The two main defendants who faked the liquor with water and printed labels and packaging are Doddi Jogeeswara Rao and Chandram Govindu.
The modus operandi consisted of injecting the water into the sealed bottles after collecting a certain amount of liquor from them. The liquor collected from the sealed bottles used to be filled into empty bottles for sale with fake labels.
“The gang had faked the liquor for the past three months and was making 75,000 yen a month. Every month at least 480 bottles of adulterated spirits of various brands were sold by the gang in the outlet. The gang also sold the fake liquor through some belt shops, ”said Sumit Garud.
On Saturday, the SEB teams confiscated 348 counterfeit liquor bottles from the outlet. “The investigation is ongoing and cases have been registered against the defendants,” said Sumit Garud.