Three held for smuggling tobacco products, foreign cigarettes
Three persons, who were procuring and selling noxious banned tobacco products and smuggled foreign cigarettes, were arrested by Hyderabad Commissioner’s Task Force (South zone) team here on Wednesday.
The accused are Mohammed Muqaddin (21), a Kirana shop owner from Bahadurpura, Imran Ahmed (36) of YAS General Store from Khaja Nagar, Attapur, and Mohammed Waseem (45), a businessman from Hakimpet. Two others, Yadhav and Kishore from Bidar in Karnataka, are still at large.
According to inspector S. Raghavendra, police seized tobacco products and foreign cigarettes worth ₹12 lakh from the accused.
The trio along with the seized material were handed over to Bahadurpura police for further investigation.
Lear MoreIndore: Adulterated hing powder making unit busted, 1 held
INDORE: Cracking down on trade of fake spices and other adulterated food material, a joint team of Indore crime branch police and district food department on Friday raided a factory and seized hing (asafoetida) powder in large quantity. The estimated value of the seized item was Rs50 lakh.
The police said that they had received a tip-off that a group of people were engaged in manufacturing adulterated hing powder at a factory in Himmat Nagar at Palda industrial area. A joint team of Indore crime branch police and district food department raided the establishment and recovered adulterated hing powder in large quantity. The raiding team also seized raw material including flour and oil along with packaging and labelling material from the establishment.
Factory owner Sahil Makhija, a resident of Palace Colony was arrested. During preliminary investigation, the police found out that the accused was associated with a group of people who were manufacturing adulterated spices in the same factory in the year 2020, and were booked under the National Security Act. The accused however managed to change name of the factory and started production of adulterated spices again.
Lear More15 packs of fake desi ghee seized in Ambala’s Barara
Officials of the food safety department, the police and an Indore-based private detective company seized 15 packs of duplicate Patanjali desi ghee of 1 kg each from a wholesaler in Ambala’s Barara, the police said on Thursday.
Out of the total seized packs, four were taken by the food safety officials for sampling to check adulteration. An FIR was lodged under Sections of the copyright and IPC Acts at the Barara police station on Wednesday.
Akhilesh Pal of the IP Indore Investigation and detective services said they had been authorised by Patanjali and had documents related to copyright and trademark.
“Two wholesalers – Sunderlal Sunil Kumar Traders and Narender Superstore — were checked by us. At Narender superstore, it was found that the design and print of 15 desi ghee packs were different from our client’s company. The packs were made to look similar to the original product,” Pal said.
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Officials Seize Large Cache of Fake COVID Vaccines, Drugs, Test Kits in Varanasi
New Delhi: In a raid conducted on February 2, the Uttar Pradesh Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has secured a large tranche of spurious COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and rapid antigen test kits from Varanasi.
The accused were five individuals in Varanasi and nine in Delhi, working together.
Uttar Pradesh’s assembly elections are set to begin in a week.
According to a note sent by the state FDA to the Drug Controller General of India, and which The Wire Science has seen, the total seizure is worth Rs 4 crore.
“Huge quantity of illegal and spurious Covid-19 vaccine(s), Covid-19 rapid test kits, unlabelled vials of Covishield vaccine, remdesivir injection and other material to carry out the manufacturing, labelling and packaging of the vaccines” has been recovered, according to the communique.
Officials also seized as many as 10,800 kits of ‘Standard Q Covid-19 Ag SD BIOSENSOR Rapid Test Kits’. In normal course, the kits are manufactured by SD Biosensor Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., a Gurugram-based company. The seized materials had fake batch numbers and fake expiry dates.
Lear MoreBengaluru: Smuggling of currency, gold via Kempegowda International Airport shoots up; seven attempts in January
BENGALURU: February arrived with Customs sleuths at Kempegowda International Airport nabbing two men from Tamil Nadu for attempting to smuggle out foreign currency, including US dollars and UAE dirhams, worth Rs 8.4 lakh to Dubai.
In fact, throughout January, there was a marked rise in smuggling from and to KIA. Authorities cracked six cases of gold and currency smuggling and busted another racket which brought heroin worth Rs 5.3 crore via air courier.
In the recent past, smuggling activities through KIA have been at an all-time low as international flight numbers went down due to the pandemic situation. But things began changing towards the end of 2021, and January of 2022 saw a sudden surge in illegal activities, including gold and currency smuggling from the Gulf by carriers who are often part of international gangs with links to Bengaluru.
2022 began with a smuggling bid on January 4 when the sleuths unearthed 24 gold biscuits worth a whopping Rs 1.4 crore hidden under a passenger seat of an IndiGo flight that had arrived from Dubai.
“The gold weighing 2.8kg was pasted by the smuggler under the seat using a duct tape, possibly for his accomplice to retrieve it at a later period when the flight switched to domestic leg to head to another city after landing in Bengaluru,” said an officer with Bengaluru Customs. On January 18, there were attempts by two passengers who flew down from Dubai with gold paste worth Rs 42 lakh hidden in their bodies. The following day saw a domestic passenger arriving from Mumbai with smuggled foreign gold pieces worth over Rs 26 lakh.
‘Fake ghee’ packets seized in Ambala, case registered
The Ambala police have registered a case under charges of the copyright Act and cheating, using false property mark and counterfeiting property mark after fake packets of Patanjali ghee were allegedly recovered from a store in Barara of Ambala on Wednesday evening.
Akhilesh Pal, a resident of Indore, stated that their company’s “investigation and detective services” had been authorised by Patanjali Ayurved Limited to keep a check on fake products. In his complaint to the police, Akhilesh said they came to know that two wholesalers, Narender Super Store and Sunder Lal Sunil Kumar Trader, in Barara were selling Patanjali Ghee at lower rates.
A team comprising food safety officer Rajiv Kumar and Barara police conducted raids in this regard. During checking, 15 packs of 1 kg each of Patanjali Ghee were recovered from Narender Super Store which didn’t match with the company’s product. The printing, artwork and colour were different. Four samples have been taken by the food safety officer for testing.
The complainant further stated that as per his experience, the packs were prepared to look like Patanjali’s ghee in order to cheat the customers.
A case was registered under Sections 420, 482, 483, 485, 486 of the IPC and 63, 64, and 65 of the Copyright Act at the Barara police station.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/fake-ghee-packets-seized-in-ambala-case-registered-366877
Lear MoreDCA officials seize Covid testing kits, fake sanitiser
VIJAYAWADA: The Drugs Control Administration (DCA) officials on Wednesday conducted surprise checks at Vaishnavi Garments alias Vaishnavi Enterprises in the city here on Wednesday for selling Covid testing kits and fake hand sanitiser without any drug licence.The officials also seized products worth Rs 37 lakh from the store under Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and rules made under r/w Medical Devices Rules, 2017.
In a press release issued here, DCA assistant director A Anil Kumar said, “We conducted surprise checks at the store on credible information and found the store was selling Covid test kits without any drug licence and stocked spurious hand sanitiser. Persons indulged in sale of drugs, diagnostic testing kits without possessing valid drug licences are liable for punishment under Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 with imprisonment for three to five years. Any violations under Medical Devices Rules, 2017 will be viewed seriously and necessary actions will be taken as per law.”
Lear More120kg fake milk solids made with soybean, starch seized
Rajkot: The health department of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Saturday busted a racket of supplying duplicate milk solids (mawa) used in making traditional sweets. They seized 120kg of duplicate mawa made from vegetable extracts from GondalChowkdi. The product was being sold in Rajkot city at less than half the price of pure mawa made out of milk fats.
Usually, mawa is made from milk fats, but the stock seized by the RMC health department was found to be made out of soybean, starch, maize flour and skimmed milk powder.
According to RMC officials, mawa made out of pure milk fats is sold at Rs 400 per kilogram. But the duplicate mawa was being sold at Rs 140 per kg in the Rajkot market. They said that consumption of mawa made out of vegetable extracts could prove harmful for health.
Officials said that the seized mawa was brought from Kutiyana in the Porbandar district. The health officials have sent samples for testing at laboratory in Vadodara and started an investigation.
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Assam Police seizes Burmese cigarettes worth Rs 20 lakh in Hailakandi
Assam Police had a major success against illegal trade in the state yesterday after it seized Burmese cigarettes worth Rs 20 lakhs.
The police ran an operation based on intel in Assam’s Hailakandi district from the house of a person identified as Abdul Ahad Laskar.
Not just Burmese cigarettes, but a large quantity of other foreign cigarettes were also seized from his house which had brought in illegally inside India. Apart from these, police also seized a sum of Rs 50 lakhs from his house.
However, Laskar managed to flee from his house before the police reached there. Meanwhile, a case has been registered and a manhunt is on to nab the absconder.
https://newslivetv.com/assam-police-seizes-burmese-cigarettes-worth-rs-20-lakh-in-hailakandi/
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Man nabbed at Hyderabad airport for smuggling 2.7 kg gold in form of paste, chains
Customs officials at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad seized 2,715.800 grams of gold items valued at Rs 1.36 crore from a passenger.
Gold valued at Rs 1.36 crore was seized from a passenger at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, Customs officials said on Saturday, January 22. The passenger had arrived by flight 6E 025 from Dubai on Friday, January 21. The officials detected and seized 2,715.800 grams of gold items valued at Rs 1.36 crore from him. Gold chains and gold in paste form were concealed inside hand baggage and check-in baggage.
This is the latest in a series of incidents of gold smuggling detected at the airport this month. On January 11, the customs officials seized 1.48 kg gold valued at Rs 72.80 lakh from three women passengers who arrived from Dubai. The gold was seized in three separate cases. Two of the passengers had hid the gold inside undergarments while the third had concealed it in rectum.
The officials on January 10 recovered 442.6 grams of gold valued at Rs 21.70 lakhs from a passenger who arrived from Dubai. The gold in paste form was concealed inside a specially stitched pocket of undergarment. A day earlier, they recovered gold in paste form from a passenger who had concealed it in the bandages tied to calves of both the legs.
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