Man held for smuggling liquor

His third attempt at using a professional courier service to smuggle expensive scotch from one metropolitan city to another landed a 28-year-old businessman behind bars, police claimed on Tuesday.

His third attempt at using a professional courier service to smuggle expensive scotch from one metropolitan city to another landed a 28-year-old businessman behind bars, police claimed on Tuesday.

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Identified as Tarun Jain, a resident of northwest Delhi's Rohini, the accused businessman was arrested after a consignment of 58 cartons of Johnnie Walker meant for him were recovered from his possession, said DC Shrivastava, additional commissioner of police (central).

"On July 16, we received a tip-off that a huge quantity of illicit liquor is being smuggled with the help of couriers and courier companies operating in Paharganj area. We were asked to keep a lookout," Shrivastava said.

According to police, when a seemingly suspicious consignment was spotted and it yielded an unusual quantity of liquor on checking, the police traced its destination to Jain's apartment.

It was sent from one Deepak based in Kolkata, police said.

A resident of sector nine, Jain was arrested and told police that he used to operate as an exporter of garments from Delhi's Gandhi Nagar to Bangkok. During one of his business trips, he came in contact with one Deepak, police claimed.

"Deepak told him that he used to bring LCD TVs and expensive liquor from Bangkok to India without any problems. Since Tarun had recently suffered losses in his business, he decided to try his hand at this lucrative business of smuggling expensive branded liquor from Bangkok at Deepak's suggestion," said Shrivastava.

Police claimed Deepak used to send Tarun expensive liquor through professional couriers at a cost of Rs 1,200 per bottle. Deepak would then sell the same for almost Rs 2,000 per bottle to his friends and others in his friend circle.

"He has been part of this racket for some time now and had received around two to three such consignments earlier. We are now tracking Deepak," said a senior police officer.