Liquor worth millions seized

2003-10-21 20:13

Johannesburg - Illegal liquor valued at R7.5m was confiscated from a warehouse near Johannesburg on Tuesday as raids continued on illegal booze factories run by a nationwide syndicate, police said.

Captain Mashadi Selepe said police, customs, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and some other government departments conducted the joint raids on up to 15 premises in Gauteng where raw alcohol was being converted to spirits and then bottled and labelled to look authentic.

"The first raid was on a liquor production plant at Ophirton, Langlaagte, in Johannesburg," Selepe said, "This was where the spirits were made, bottled and labelled. This raid led us to a storage depot on the other side of town."

Selepe said 125 000 litres of assorted spirits, whisky, brandy, vodka, cane, gin and rum were found in the warehouse at Storm Hill in the Highgate area and a man found loading crates onto a lorry for delivery was taken in for questioning.

The liquor was taken to a Sars bonded warehouse for safe keeping and samples would be sent for forensic testing to determine whether there was any danger to consumers.

Selepe said investigations were definitely continuing and it was expected that these would lead to arrests or confiscations in other areas of the country.

Duty-free

Sars spokesperson Sechaba Nkosi said plants raided were at various locations in Kempton Park, Crown Mines, Roodepoort and other places in Gauteng.

"But each raid leads us on to another. It may well be that the raids will continue beyond Gauteng and even countrywide."

Nkosi said the raids followed a two-month-long investigation which showed that raw alcohol was being imported and turned into bottled spirits.

"At one plant we found 72 pallets with bottles being made ready for use," Nkosi said.

Bottle tops were imported from India and the bottles were labelled correctly before being sent to outlets but it was not yet clear how much liquor had been sold, for how long, or to which outlets, Nkosi said.

The raw alcohol was imported from Asia and marked as in transit for export to an unnamed country outside South Africa, so that no duty was payable. However, the alcohol stayed in South Africa and so escaped duties of hundreds of thousands of rands, Nkosi said.

A major player in the liquor industry has welcomed the raids.

Tshidi Seane, spokesperson for Guinness UDV, the South African subsidiary of London-based Diageo plc, told Sapa that the uncovering of the massive illegal liquor syndicate in South Africa had strengthened his group's faith in the justice system.

Check those bargains

Guinness UDV owns whisky brands Johnny Walker, J&B and Bells as well as Captain Morgan rum and Smirnoff vodka.

Smirnoff was one of the brands illegally made of raw alcohol and "correctly" bottled and labelled at the illegal liquor production plants raided on Tuesday.

Other spirits manufactured and marketed by the syndicate were brandy labelled as "VO Bertrams" and bottles bearing labels such as "Odessa", "Palm Beach" and "Overberg".

Seane said: "Although the packaging of the product may look authentic, those who know our brand will recognise the difference in the taste. If they find they've bought a bogus bottle they should contact our office on 011-313-2600."

Asked if his group would examine stocks of their product at any outlets, Seane said: "Yes, we must consider testing random samples but at the moment we don't know the extent of the distribution of this illegal liquor. We will have to find a way to educate our consumers to tell the real thing from the fake. Perhaps a start might be to watch out for the price - bargains happen but check it out first."

- SAPA