CID probe underway as Excise security stickers found on counterfeit liquor bottles

Colombo, July 9 (Daily Mirror) - A Criminal Investigation Department probe is currently underway over a large seizure of counterfeit liquor bottles recently from Malambe had the Excise Department approved security sticker pasted on the bottle necks, thus giving the impression whether the perpetrators have forged the sticker too.

However, the mystery deepened as the preliminary inquiries had revealed that the security stickers pasted on the counterfeit liquor bottles were not fake but genuine as issued by the Department of Excise.

The police recently raided a residence in Sudarshana Mawatha in Malambe and seized 18, 575 quarter bottles filled with a local branded arrack containing 3, 345 litres. Several suspects who were running the operations of the counterfeit liquor business were also arrested.

Although the officials inquiring into the matter first thought the seized stock of liquor were pasted with a fake security sticker, examining the security features of the stickers later proved that conclusion was to be wrong and that they were genuine.

The Yahapalana Government in 2019 introduced a mechanism of pasting a security sticker on every legitimate bottle of liquor being produced by any licensed manufacturer and the tender to print such stickers was awarded to a company called ‘Madras Security Printers’.

Although certain questionable works of the MSP that operate in countries like Philippines, South Sudan, Bangladesh and Kenya were debated in the Parliament the tender was awarded to it to process the security stickers on liquor bottles.

However, since then on several occasions the authorities found this genuine sticker is being pasted on counterfeit liquor bottles that were raided from countrywide locations in the past six years.

The security sticker was solely introduced to secure the tax revenue that will be lost to the government due to the unlawful production of liquor and the counterfeit liquor carrying the particular security feature had raised eyebrows of many, concerning the revenue incurred to the state throughout the times.

Six persons including a millionaire businessman and ex-forces personnel have been taken into custody in connection with the recent detection and being probed to determine, whether they received the security stickers from the printer MSP itself or through any other party.