Hyderabad: Duty-free liquor on sale, gangs get rich while government loses tax

HYDERABAD: For smugglers, duty-free foreign liquor is as good as gold. They piggyback on international fliers to legally buy imported foreign liquor from duty-free shop at RGI Airport, then illegally sell it to local customers at a price lower than government-mandated rates for foreign brands at retail liquor stores. While the profit is neat for smugglers, the revenue loss for state is steep. In less than a fortnight, excise officials have seized 254 foreign liquor bottles worth Rs 30 lakh from gangs operating in the city.
International passengers can buy duty-free liquor for personal consumption by producing a flight ticket and passport. “But selling duty-free liquor is illegal,” an excise official said.
With the modus operandi of the fraudsters coming to light, excise officials caught T Venkatesh (55) of Chikkadpally twice in four months.
Venkatesh, who operated a departmental store in the US for over a decade, has been supplying foreign liquor to parties in the city for the past few years. “He has been supplying lakhs of rupees worth of foreign liquor to clients. At the time of his arrest, we seized 171 foreign liquor bottles from him and his two aides,” an excise official said.
Blue Label and Royal Salute whiskies seem to be the favourite brands of the gangs. According to excise sleuths, state government sells 750 ml bottles of the two imported brands for Rs 22,000 and Rs 21,000 respectively at retail liquor shops. But on the other hand, at a duty-free shop fliers (carriers for smugglers) can buy a litre of the same brands between Rs 13,000 and Rs 14,000, which is sourced by Venkatesh and then sold to clients for Rs 18,000 to Rs 19,000.
“Customers get a litre of imported alcohol for price lesser than a 750-ml bottle in the market. It is a win-win situation for both the supplier and the customer,” an excise official said.
Venkatesh was found to be procuring duty-free liquor from Chennai-based Doraisingam and Phaneendra Babu. In addition to the Chennai suppliers, Venkatesh also had contacts at the duty-free shop at RGI Airport, operated by GMR Hospitality and Retail Limited, officials said.
“Passengers who go to Malaysia to buy electronic goods such as camera lenses and LED TVs are being used by Venkatesh to bring duty-free liquor from Hyderabad airport. He used to give money to one Khaled, working at Hyderabad duty-free shop, and his former assistant Anil. They scan passports of passengers from Malaysia and send duty-free liquor out with them. Venkatesh collects the liquor outside the airport,” assistant excise superintendent N Anji Reddy said.
Deputy commissioner C Vivekananda Reddy said that in the past two weeks their teams had arrested six persons, including Venkatesh, two RGI Airport duty-free shop workers, a havildar of central GST, who used to work at the airport, and a Mumbai-based foreign liquor supplier belonging to three gangs.
“We strongly condemn such cases. We have a zero-tolerance policy against such misdemeanours. Based on prima facie information, we have already suspended the employee in question and we are conducting a thorough investigation from our side,” a spokesperson of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), which operates RGI Airport at Shamshabad, said.