too flat?

New Delhi, Feb. 4: If the imported whisky at your home in Calcutta tastes a little funny, chances are it could be fake. Especially if the bottle came from Delhi.

Delhi police today claimed to have unearthed a plant that bottled fake Scotch and whose supply chain extended to Calcutta and Mumbai.

Six people have been arrested and the police have seized more than 150 bottles of fake liquor brands including the single malt whisky Glenfiddich, Johnny Walker, Black Label, Blue Label, Chivas Regal and Grey Goose vodka.

“They used to supply these fake brands to parties at farmhouses in Delhi and restaurants... (and) to Calcutta and Mumbai,” deputy commissioner (crime branch) Ashok Chand told The Telegraph.

He said the racket had been running for the past three years. “They used to tell their clients they had got the Scotch from several embassies.”

The police also seized 183 empty bottles of Scotch brands, with 1,039 bottle caps, 116 empty cartons, 66 stickers and 10 machines for attaching the stickers to the bottles.

Chand alleged that Sudhir Yadav, 36, a graduate and former employee of a multinational bank, operated the plant from his flat in east Delhi’s Sarita Vihar.

Yadav allegedly bought empty Scotch bottles and cartons from scrap dealers Mohammed Nazim and Mohammed Raju. Each empty bottle cost him Rs 150 and each carton Rs 50.

Chand said Yadav mixed local whisky brands Bagpiper and Signature in a 3:1 ratio to prepare the fake Scotch. He allegedly manufactured four cartons of 12 bottles each every day, spending about Rs 7,000 on each carton.

“He sold each carton at Rs 13,000 to Vinod Dua, a wholesaler, who sold it to liquor shop owner Sushil Mittal at Rs 25,000. Mittal sold each carton at Rs 30,000 to Rs 35000,” Chand said.

He said Mittal, a property dealer who had suffered heavy losses, employed 15 people to distribute the fake whisky. “The clients were very rich people. The racketeers had their men in Calcutta and Mumbai too,” the officer said.

Among those arrested is Narender Chopra, 60, who sold Yadav the fake bottle caps and stickers that he had been making for 15 years, Chand said.