Camels used to smuggle liquor into Delhi, 1 arrested
Delhi Police’s Special Staff, South District, busted an illicit liquor smuggling racket with an unusual twist: the contraband was not being moved in a truck or an auto. It was loaded onto two camels and walked through forest routes into the Capital in the dead of night.
One accused, Vinod Bhadana, 48, a resident of Village Anandpur in Faridabad, Haryana, was arrested in the early hours of Sunday from the Sangam Vihar Forest area. Police recovered 39 cartons of illicit liquor, totalling 1,938 quarters, along with the two camels and equipment used to carry the load.
The logic behind Bhadana’s method was straightforward and, in its own way, audacious. Intensified checking on roads connecting Delhi and Faridabad under Operation Kavach had made conventional transportation too risky. So Bhadana turned to forest routes and animals that no checkpoint was built to stop.
By loading liquor onto camels and navigating through the forest belt between Faridabad and Sangam Vihar, he could bypass every checking point, every patrol, every CCTV camera on the road. It was an old smuggler’s trick adapted for modern enforcement pressure, and it very nearly worked.
On the intervening night of March 29 and 30, specific intelligence was received about the smuggling attempt. A strategic trap was laid in the Sangam Vihar Forest area.
When Bhadana arrived, walking his camel convoy through the tree line, the team closed in. He was apprehended on the spot. The liquor was seized. The two camels were rescued and handed over to the relevant authorities.
This was not Bhadana’s first encounter with the law. He already has a prior case registered against him, FIR number 367/2025, under Sections 33 and 38 of the Delhi Excise Act and Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act at PS Neb Sarai. That earlier case also involved illicit liquor and, notably, also attracted a charge of animal cruelty, suggesting the use of animals as carriers may not be a new tactic for him. The fresh case adds significantly heavier charges and a far larger recovery than before.
The Sangam Vihar Forest belt, which sits along the southern fringe of Delhi near the Haryana border, has historically served as a grey zone for smuggling activity: thin on surveillance, accessible on foot, and largely off the radar of road-based enforcement. Bhadana’s operation appears to have been deliberately designed around this geography.
The recovery of specific equipment used for loading and carrying liquor on the camels suggests this was not a one-time improvisation but a structured operation with some preparation behind it. The case has been registered, and further investigation is underway. Police have not ruled out the possibility of a larger supply network behind the consignment.
