Goa: 10-12 booze seizures annually, but no sign of masterminds

PANAJI: Annually, the excise department seizes 10 to 12 vehicles ferrying liquor illegally at border checkposts, but the masterminds of the racket are never found.
Officials said that cheap alcohol is sneaked into the neighbouring states, with kingpins of the racket operating from there.
When a vehicle carrying unaccounted booze is found, its driver and other crew members are questioned. Officials said the responses are standard - the driver and others say they know nothing.
"A typical reply is that he was told to drive the vehicle from point A to B, and he was not aware that liquor crates were stacked in the vehicle," an official said. "If duty has been paid for the liquor that has been seized at any of the border checkposts, the state does not lose revenue. Still, the operation is illegal."
The official said that kingpins do not share information down the supply chain and that even drivers are clueless about the consignments.
"A truck carrying unlicensed liquor consignment is handled by two to three different people till it crosses the Goa border," the official said. "A new driver takes over on the other side of the border."
Drivers are arrested and released on bail and the liquor seized is auctioned. An official said the government does not go after small fry. Since much of the smugglers' cache consists of low-end liquor, deep investigations are not initiated.
"The liquor seized is always of cheaper brands, with the highest price per bottle being Rs 400," the official said. He said to confound authorities, the racketeers never buy their full consignment from a single dealer.
"They pick two to three crates from different wholesalers or have eight to ten different people buy two crates each from a dealer or dealers," the official said.
Sometimes, he said, liquor boxes are hidden in fish trucks. It is not possible to check each vehicle when there are 15 to 20 in the queue. "But we try our best and even vehicles carrying fish are checked though the task is difficult," he said. "If a few boxes containing liquor are placed at the bottom of empty milk containers, a smuggler may have an easy run across the border," another official said.