Thane: The Thane Crime Branch Unit-1 arrested four persons for illegal liquor smuggling and rebranding low-quality alcohol from Goa for sale across Maharashtra.The operation, conducted on Tuesday, uncovered a sophisticated racket where smugglers were removing original labels from cheap liquor bottles and replacing them with counterfeit labels resembling popular brands to deceive consumers, said DCP Crime, Amar Singh Jadhav.Acting on a tip-off, crime branch officials laid a trap near Nerurkar Road in Dombivli East on June 4 evening. They intercepted a pickup truck and found it loaded with foreign liquor. The driver, Shrikant Tokade, could not produce any valid documents for the consignment.Tokade’s interrogation led police to a rundown tiled house in Pandurang Nivas Chawl, Sudamwadi, where the main storage facility was located. The search operation, which continued through the night until June 5 morning, revealed the full extent of the illegal operation, Jadhav informed.Officers recovered 18,290 bottles of various foreign liquor brands stored in cardboard boxes. The racket was well-equipped with sophisticated machinery, including green and orange labeling machines, mini-print machines used to fabricate batch numbers, manufacturing and expiry dates, along with cartridges and counterfeit brand labels, said the DCP. The total value of seized property, including the liquor, counterfeit equipment, and the transport vehicle, is estimated at over ₹30 lakh.The arrested accused include Shrikant Bhagirath Tokade, 27, a driver from Titwala; Vakil Nivas Mandal, 23, a cleaner from Kalyan East; and two employees — Ravi Santosh Tiwari, 30, and Sanjeet Hajari Yadav, 19, both residents of the same Dombivli area where the operation was busted.Crime branch officials said the gang was sourcing low-quality foreign liquor from Goa through unauthorized channels and using the fake labeling operation to pass it off as premium brands before distributing it across Maharashtra.
