In a major catch, the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Haridwar police arrested three main accused in the manufacture of duplicate cosmetics of reputed companies on Thursday following a series of raids.
led by Thana in-charge SIDCUl, SOG in-charge and senior sub-inspector Ranipur, three police teams recovered packaging materials and equipments used in cosmetics making from the accused. The accused have been booked under various sections of the Copyright Act and the Indian Penal Code.
The gang was involved in manufacturing duplicate cosmetics of well- known brands in the district for years, police said. The district police had arrested some people in connection with the case a few days ago following a complaint from the owner one of the companies and recovered duplicate products of Himalayan Company under Ranipur jurisdiction. Acting on their clues, the police arrested one Nitoo of Ranipur locality in Haridwar along with his aides and recovered from him the packaging wrappers, unfilled tubes and a processing machine and duplicate cosmetics worth Rs 4 lakh.
Revealing the case at SIDCUl on Friday noon, SSP Haridwar Senthil Avudai Krishna Raj S said, “Many FMCG products of branded companies like Hindustan Unilever and Himalaya Company are sold in the market. These three boys from Haridwar came together and began making duplicate products of famous brands. We have booked the accused under sections of the Copyright Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). An electric machine along with eight big gunny bags of 80,000 unfilled tubes, 150 pieces of duplicate facewash and 1,000 pieces of duplicate Himalaya facewash have been recovered from them”.
On Thursday, the team arrested the three accused - Nitoo, Adarsh and Gulfam - while riding a Swift Desire car near Danso crossing.
The modus operandi used by the gang of the three was to purchase substandard cream from grey market and label them in packaging materials of famous brands.
During interrogation, the accused revealed that Nitoo had a cream filling machine which he had bought from Delhi. A few months ago he met one Sanjeev alias Sanju along with his friend Adarsh. They decided to fill duplicate cream in branded tubes for which Sanju gave the idea of using Himalayan company’s tubes which he had purchased in scrap from their Baddi plant in Himachal Pradesh. They had cleaned those tubes near a factory situated near a gas plant after taking the factory on rent for two days. A cosmetics’ factory is run by one Kuldeep in Bavana in Delhi industrial area from where these three bought facewash at the rate of Rs 105 per kg and had filled it in tubes at a factory at Jagatpuri in Delhi. On the evening of December 21, Nitoo, Sanju and Adarsh were packing the tubes at a shop hired by Adarsh. Adarsh went for shopping because of his engagement the next day. During raid conducted by SOG team, Nitoo ran away but Sanju was arrested.
On Thursday, the three were going to deliver the duplicate Himalaya drugs and Ponds face cream in Nitoo’s car when they were nabbed by the police.