A Special Operations Team (SOT) of the Rachakonda Commissionerate in Hyderabad on Tuesday busted a duplicate hand sanitiser manufacturing unit and arrested six people, who were planning to dupe the public and cash in on the prevailing fear due to spread of COVID-19.
Acting on a tip-off, the SOT, Bhongir Zone, conducted a joint operation along with sleuths of the Kushaiguda and Abdullahpurmet police by raiding a manufacturing unit at Cherlapally, and a sub-unit at Pasumamula.
The accused were identified as Kakarlapudi Krishna Kiran, Subramanyam, Vemuri Vishwanath, Chandan Panjwani, Anil Kumar and Bommu Shanker. One Nirmal Kumar is absconding. Police said that the accused began manufacturing hand sanitisers with no prior permission from the departments concerned and without any kind of precautions to meet industry standards that were laid down.
"Normally, hand sanitisers turn dry as soon as they are applied on hands. But the particular company's sanitiser does not get dry," the police said.
Sold under the name of Semuns Cleansem, the hand sanitiser printed a fake license number, a fake batch number and also used fake manufacturer details (Semuns Laboratories), the police said.
Following this, the police also conducted a raid on a sub-unit which was also allegedly indulging in similar fraud by selling fake sanitisers under the brand name of 'Kausthuba co-clean 19’.
"The accused so far manufactured various brands and distributed them around Telangana and Andhra Pradesh through various distributors and supplied the same to leading medical shops. So far, the accused has manufactured and marketed 1 lakh bottles worth Rs 1.44 crore," the police revealed.
The approximate cost for manufacturing the duplicate sanitiser including Goods and Service Tax (GST) was Rs 46 and was being sold by the accused in the market for Rs 144 per bottle.
At the first manufacturing unit, the police seized 25,000 bottles of sanitiser besides 11 drums of Isopropyl alcohol and other materials that were being used to manufacture the sanitisers, along with Rs 40 lakh in cash.
At the sub unit, 2,500 bottles of sanitiser and 5 cans of liquid sanitiser, each with 20 litres of the liquid, was seized, besides an Omni and Rs 10 lakh in cash.
Police have registered cases under Sections 188, 420 (Cheating), 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides relevant sections of The Essential Commodities Act, 1955, Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The Rachakonda police said that they have intensified monitoring in the market over the last few days, to book those who have been selling masks and sanitisers at a hiked price.