Hyderabad: The enforcement wing of the excise and prohibition department has zeroed in on the kingpin in the foreign liquor racket case. The investigation officials found that one Harish Singh Lodha is behind the racket and he formed an organised gang for diverting foreign liquor from duty-free shops to open markets. During the course of investigation by the Special Task Force of the Enforcement wing, it was found that the racket was diverting 120 to 200 bottles from the duty-free shop in Rajiv Gandhi Interna-tional Airport per day and selling the same to people who wanted it urgently, on the same day. It was also found that the racket was supplying foreign liquor brands on demand to its regular customers in Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills areas.
Harish Singh is a veteran in supplying illicit liquor and he started his criminal activity with illicit gudamba in the city. He hailed from Dhoolpet in the city and continued his illicit liquor business till 2010. While managing liquor gangs in Dhoo-lpet, he used to depute youth from Dhoolpet who were experts at driving and knew all the shortcuts in the city. So far, the investigation teams have arrested five persons in the case, including one customs’ superintendent, three staff from customs’ department and one supplier Shiva Patil. After questioning the five arrested persons, the enforcement team got the kingpin’s name.
Assistant Excise Superintendent N. Anji Reddy, who is investigating the case, said that special teams were formed to nab the prime accused Harish Singh. “We are also concentrating on the buyers of the foreign liquor in Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills. We are collecting evidence to nab them. Besides this, we are suspecting the role of a few wine shops in this case,” he said. Another team has already collected evidence from the CCTV footage available with RGIA and has identified a few more accused persons involved in the case. Officials have also found that the kingpin Harish Singh had a network of similar rackets in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Sri Lanka.
“The gangs from Chennai are having connections with Sri Lankan gangs which supply the foreign liquor illegally through the sea route. So far we found one Sridhar supplying foreign liquor from Delhi to Harish Singh and Ganesh from Chennai. We are on to the paperwork now and estimating the commissions of customs officials by the racket,” he said. When the police and excise department cracked down on the illicit liquor rackets, he joined hands with a foreign liquor mafia don Jayesh V. Takkar and became his a key associate.
Takkar is most wanted in five excise cases in Telangana. For the past five years, he was out of action. The excise department suspects that he is taking shelter in Nanded. After Takkar withdrew from circulation, Harish Singh took charge as the leader of the foreign liquor racket and started shifting his residences frequently from one place to another place. An official said that Harish Singh doesn’t stay at one place for lon time.
