Husband-Wife Duo Arrested As Masterminds Behind Fake Nandini Ghee Racket
Police arrest kingpins behind counterfeit dairy scam.
In a major crackdown on food adulteration, Bengaluru’s Central Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested a husband-wife duo, Shivakumar and Ramya, identified as the masterminds behind a sophisticated racket producing and distributing counterfeit Nandini ghee, exploiting the immense trust millions of Karnataka households place in the iconic state-run dairy brand.
Operating from a clandestine high-tech manufacturing unit in the city, the couple allegedly used industrial-grade machinery to mass-produce adulterated ghee by blending cheap coconut oil, palm oil, and possibly animal fat, before packaging it in meticulously forged Nandini-branded containers designed to deceive retailers and consumers alike.
The breakthrough followed weeks of intelligence gathering by a joint team of CCB sleuths and the Karnataka Milk Federation’s vigilance wing, which tracked suspicious supply patterns and intercepted a Tamil Nadu-registered vehicle carrying thousands of litres of fake ghee destined for Bengaluru markets on November 14.
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Raids on godowns, shops, and the couple’s production facility in Chamarajpet’s Nanjamba Agrahara led to the seizure of assets worth ₹1.26 crore, including 8,136 litres of adulterated ghee valued at ₹56.95 lakh, advanced packaging machinery, raw materials, five mobile phones, ₹1.19 lakh in cash, and four Bolero goods vehicles worth ₹60 lakh used for distribution.
With four additional operatives already in custody and forensic tests underway to confirm the presence of animal fat in the seized samples, authorities have warned that the scale of the operation indicates the counterfeit ghee may have entered thousands of households across Karnataka, prompting urgent calls for consumers to verify authenticity markers on Nandini products while the investigation expands into interstate supply networks.
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