Bootleggers use the aged, the disabled to evade cops

Although all shops were shut since March 25, on May 4, the government had allowed 100 of the 864 liquor stores in Delhi to reopen.

With 90% of all liquor vends across Delhi closed since March 25, bootleggers have been coming up with innovative ways to smuggle the spirits into the capital city.

With 90% of all liquor vends across Delhi closed since March 25, bootleggers have been coming up with innovative ways to smuggle the spirits into the capital city.(Photo: Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times)

Although all shops were shut since March 25, on May 4, the government had allowed 100 of the 864 liquor stores in Delhi to reopen. But they were in no way able to manage the huge crowds that descended on them in blatant violation of all social distancing norms.

Experts say the huge profit margins and the wide demand-supply gap has bootleggers moving in to fill the void. From hiring the elderly or disabled people as carriers to transporting liquor hidden in vegetable carts, the bootleggers over the last two months used every trick in their book to milk the dry days while avoiding arrest.

The Narela police on April 26 arrested a 75-year-old woman for smuggling liquor from Sonepat, Haryana. The woman told police she was paid ₹2,000 to sit as a pillion rider on a scooter to avoid suspicion. While the young man, who hired her, abandoned the scooter on seeing the police and fled, the elderly woman could not run and was caught. Police found at least 100 bottles of liquor with her, each containing about 330ml.

Hoping that police would not stop disabled persons for checking, a bootlegger roped in a physically disabled person. When police stopped the two at Nangloi on April 28, they found 90 bottles of liquor, each bottle measuring 180ml, smuggled from Bahadurgarh, Haryana. The 40-year-old disabled person told police that a friend had promised him ₹500 for each trip he made.

Last month, police registered at least 300 cases under the Excise Act and also seized around 30,000 bottles of liquor. Delhi Police officers said with the government opening all shops, except those in malls and containment zones, there will be a reduction in bootlegging.

In the last one month, police found bootleggers smuggling liquor in vehicles carrying loads of cauliflower, cucumber an other vegetables. On May 2, when police stopped an e-rickshaw loaded with cucumbers, the driver’s behaviour aroused suspicion, prompting the police to carefully sift through the cucumbers. They found 580 bottles hidden inside the cucumbers. In Chhawla, two men were arrested for using a private ambulance to smuggle 913 liquor bottles.

Deputy commissioner of police(Dwarka) Anto Alphonso, said the two were paid ₹2,000 each by the owner of the ambulance vehicle to ferry the contraband.

It isn’t just vehicles or unusual carriers. Until last week, when movement of all persons except those involved in essential services, restricted across the city, a 36-year-old man came up with the idea of getting alcohol to his buyers in south Delhi while posing as a Good Samaritan out to distribute food to the underprivileged. He was arrested from Jaitpur on May 10.

Retired IPS officer Vikram Singh, who was the director general of Uttar Pradesh Police, said when there is a prohibition, criminals do come up with innovative ways to beat it. “Liquor was unavailable until recently. The profit margins for a smuggled bottle is very high so they find innovative means to smuggle them,” he said.

Delhi Police spokesperson Mandeep Randhawa said even so, police are one step ahead of them. “Our personnel on the ground are alert and keep an eye on every vehicle passing through the border. Apart from acting on tipoffs we also conduct random checks on suspicious vehicles. We rely on intelligence from our sources to catch these smugglers. Bootleggers may come up with innovative ways but we are ahead of them. This is the reason why we have busted illicit liquor transported in ambulances, vegetable carts, milk canisters.”