Prayagraj: Liquor mafia use fake biltis to smuggle booze

PRAYAGRAJ: Uttar Pradesh Police’s Special Task Force (STF) recently seized around 531 cartons of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth Rs 50 lakh from near Bachhrawan Road on Prayagraj-Rae Bareli highway.
The illegal consignment was being transported from Punjab and had to be delivered in Bihar where liquor is banned.
STF sleuths had arrested two pepole - Paramjeet Singh and Lakhbir Singh - both residents of Moga, Punjab, and seized two biltis of cement sacks from their possession.
Additional SP (STF) Neeraj Kumar Pandey told TOI, “The liquor mafia is now using fake transport biltis to smuggle illegal liquor consignments.”
“There were three recent cases in the past one month where STF recovered illegal liquor worth Rs 1.5 crore and found liquor mafia using fake biltis to smuggle consignments of liquor,” he added.
In the recent case, the mafia got bilti for transportation of ceiling and table fan parts worth Rs 29 lakh, but the truck was found carrying ceiling fans parts worth Rs 5 lakh only.
They had, in fact, kept cartons of illegal liquor in middle and cartons of parts of ceiling and table fans in front and back portions of the truck to dodge officials checking the consignment.
The police seized illegal liquor worth Rs 60 lakh from the truck.
Most liquor smugglers depend on truck drivers to transport the consignments, especially from Punjab to Bihar.
The STF came to know about the modus operandi when it arrested two truck drivers on May 18 along with illegal liquor worth Rs 40 lakh. The accused, Jaswinder Singh and Paramjeet Singh, residents of Ludhiana, Punjab, told police they had been transporting liquor by using biltis of truck waste.