Herald caught him in September, Maharashtra excise catches him now

28000 bottle caps for liquor bottles seized from Bethora; Excise team then picks up Pradeep Pandey, Herald’s original catch from Navelim

Published on:

10 Mar 2016, 1:10 am

Team Herald

MARGAO: It took a team of brave heart Herald reporters to watch, track and catch this liquor smuggler in broad daylight at the Margao railway station. They handed him to the Konkan Railway police but he was soon set free. Six months later, the Maharashtra Excise department arrested the kingpin Pradeep Pandey, as a part of its ongoing raid and investigation into the spurious liquor trade which is carried out on trains leaving Goa and passing through Maharashtra.

On Sunday, the Maharashtra Excise department conducted a raid at Khareband. They followed this with another raid on Wednesday at Bethora, Ponda and recovered 28,000 caps used for the liquor bottles worth around Rs 3.20 lakh and arrested one Minaz Abdul Sattar Siddiqui.

The team later in the evening arrested Herald’s original catch, Pradeep Pandey from his residence at Rawanfond, Navelim. “Pandey is one of the key persons in transporting liquor through the railways,” Subhash Jadhav, Senior Excise Inspector of Maharashtra Excise, who headed the team, said. Herald said so and had informed the Konkan Railway police at Margao in September. The fact that Pandey had a free run for six months after Herald caught him is shocking.

“After interrogating the trio arrested on Sunday from Khareband we got a lead that the caps were supplied from Bethora, Ponda. We took the help of Ponda police and raided the premises at Ponda. We found 28,000 caps used for liquor bottles. We also got empty cartoons of MacDowell’s, Imperial Blue, Antiquity & Honey Bee,” Jadhav said.

“Maharashtra Government has issued a circular to all retail outlets and people to break the empty bottles before disposing them, as this controls the trade of spurious liquor. Even the Goa government should adopt this,” Rao Saheb Kore, Excise Inspector of Kolhapur range who is assisting the team, said.

The Goa Excise department has neither broken the bottles nor broken the back of this racket, till the Maharashtra Excise department had to come to Goa, conduct raids and arrest the kingpins.

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when herald ‘arrested’ smuggler pandey and seized 80 bottles of spurious liquor

During a week-long investigation on liquor smuggling through the railways from South Goa, conducted in September 2015, Herald reporters NAVIN JHA and BASURI DESAI had chased and exposed the gang of smugglers operating at Margao Railway station. The gang had been operating for years and according to locals the gang was based just 100 metres away from Margao Railway Police office.

The Herald team, in a well planned but risky operation, had apprehended Pradeep Pandey, at the Margao station while he was loading spurious and illegal liquor bottles on a train. Pandey had confessed to paying bribes to police and was later handed over to the same Railway Police by Herald reporters. The Konkan Railway Police later arrested him and promptly released him on bail. The Herald team had seized over 80 bottles of spurious liquor which the gang was attempting to smuggle to the neighbouring State.

What Goa couldn’t do, Maharashtra Narcotics and Excise dept has done

After intercepting a vehicle at the Maharashtra border carrying 16,000 litres of ethanol spirit worth Rs 82 lakh the team interrogated the two accused carrying the spirit. Following information that the spirit was used to manufacture spurious liquor, the narcotics team raided places at Khareband and seized the liquor worth Rs 5.5 lakh. This was three days back and today they have also picked the kingpin in smuggling

Pradeep Pandey.