Bhavnagar: Acting on a tip-off, the Food and Drug Administration uncovered a factory in Bhavnagar that was manufacturing various cosmetic soaps without permission and selling them online on websites as well as Amazon. Four samples of suspected cosmetics have been sent for testing, and cosmetics worth approximately Rs 60,000 have been confiscated, Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration Dr. H. G. Koshia stated.
Mr. Koshia further added, “The act of making and selling products through misleading advertisements of cosmetics without any license, spreading superstition, providing astrological guidance without a degree, deceiving people, and manufacturing and selling false items on online platforms like Amazon has been occurring. As a result, the Gandhinagar Drugs Team and Bhavnagar Drugs Team were formed under the guidance of Deputy Commissioner (IB) Y. G. Darji and Bhavnagar’s Assistant Commissioner A. A. Raddia. During a raid, it was found that Nilofarben Sadiqbhai Khadrani, on the second floor of a residential building at Plot No. 81, Meghdoot Society, Bhavnagar, was making soaps without a license and using a fake license number GJ/05/0034175, which was not issued by the administration.”
For this production, she used household items such as induction stoves, pans, spoons, raw materials, various flavors, different molds, frieze, Ayurvedic mix powders, 120 kg of raw material, and Prabal brand brass coins, Cartons printed with pictures of different planets and other materials which have been seized for further action.
Officials have also confiscated around 1,800 soaps of different brands, valued at approximately ₹3.50 lakhs. The investigation revealed that Suryatnaya Innovation LLP, located at Plot No. 1210, ABC, Swastik Society, Bhavnagar, was selling these soaps on their own website as well as online through Amazon.
During the probe, it was learned that most of the sales through this firm were made through the drug agency of Dilipbhai Amritlal Mehta, named Apex Pharma Agency, which sold and delivered the products. During the raid at that agency, a total of four samples were taken and sent to the Vadodara laboratory for analysis, and material worth ₹20,000 was seized. Further investigation revealed that they had been selling cosmetics for one and a half months. Additionally, a thorough investigation has been launched into where and how they were obtaining the raw materials and to whom they were selling these cosmetics.
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