The fake packets in the printing press. Picture by Amit Datta

A raid on Tuesday blew the cover of a counterfeit racket that was being run in a printing press, tucked away in a narrow lane off Jessore Road, diagonally opposite the Dum Dum Ordnance factory.

The enforcement branch of West Bengal Police raided SP Printing on the basis of a complaint by Tata Tea. Almost 50,000 counterfeit packets and pouches with the Tata Tea brand name were seized. The haul is estimated to be worth almost Rs 10 lakh.

Police have detained the proprietor of the press, Noni Pal, and four others.

D. Ghosh, joint secretary, Tata Tea, said: ?We had set a trap to catch the culprits red-handed. After identifying the establishment, one of our employees went there as a customer. He paid the men running the press Rs 42,000 and asked them to print a large quantity of tea pouches with our brand name. He told the men that he would collect the pouches today. We then informed the authorities.?

Proclaiming his innocence, proprietor Pal said: ?We have not manufactured the pouches. A customer came to us and gave us these samples and said he would come back later to collect them. The pouches were not printed on our premises.?

This was the second raid by police on printing presses in eastern India. The first raid was conducted in Cuttack about five months ago.

During the raid, the police seized expensive printing cylinders engraved with the Tata Tea logo. The cylinders were allegedly used to print the counterfeit pouches.

Enforcement branch officers said they were looking into the matter and the involvement of a large organised gang could not be ruled out.

Tata Tea officials said the tea that was being packed in the pouches was of dubious quality. ?The tea is not drinkable at all. It would have posed a serious health hazard to the consumers,? stated Ghosh.