RAJKOT: The probe into the sinister racket of smuggling alcoholic herbal syrups from Silvassa has revealed that the racketeers sold the intoxicating concoction worth Rs 45 crore only in Saurashtra since 2020.
The Devbhumi Dwarka police had busted the well-oiled racket by raiding a factory in Silvassa last week and arrested eight people, including the kingpin Sunil Kakkad, a former telecom company owner who was on bail in Rs 800 crore bank fraud.
The accused smuggled two crores bottles into Gujarat from the union territory of Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
Nitesh Pandey superintendent of police, Devbhumi Dwarka district said, “These people never intended to make herbal syrup but only beer and sell it under the grab of ayurvedic syrups. They hired people having expertise in making beer and wine.”
“They are white-collared bootleggers,” Pandey said.
The content of the liquid had the maximum amount of malted barley and extracts of Hope flower seeds were used to give the beer-like bitterness. Ayurveda experts said malted barley is never used in making Asav and Arishta medicines. The seized bottles had labels of these two medicines.
The questioning of the eight also threw up four more names. These include Sanjay Shah, the owner and investor in the factory; Mehul Dodia, a retired prohibition and excise officer, Rajesh Dodke, who was tasked with sales and marketing; and another person named Pankaj Vaghela. They are yet to be arrested.
One of the accused, Amit Vasavda, who knew nothing about Ayurveda was in charge of production.
The police verified this product with Ayurvedic experts and found it hardly had any herbs as mentioned on the bottle labels.
