Officers of the Department of Excise conducted raids across the country in search of counterfeit fool-proof stickers on bottles of liquor.Spokesman of the Department, Additional Excise Commissioner Kapila Kumarasinghe, said that stocks of bottles of liquor, with counterfeit fool proof stickers, had been found from liquor shops and restaurants at Neluwa, Thambuttegama, Thalawa, Nelubewa and Kahatagasdigiliya. The raiders also took into custody the managers and owners of the liquor shops and legal action would be taken against them, he added.

Kumarage said counterfeit stickers deprived the state of a great deal of revenue and helped racketeers sell substandard liquor, endangering the lives of the public. He said raids would be stepped up to prevent the drain of excise revenue as the department was tasked with the target to collect Rs 217 billion revenue this year.

Justice Minister Wijayadasa Rajapakshe told Parliament recently that the printer of those stickers known as Madras Security Printing Company had been blacklisted in many countries. “They are blacklisted because they supply stickers to both the authorised agencies and the errant traders. I filed a case before the Court of Appeal against giving the contract to this company. However, the court decision was not in our favour. Now, the company is printing stickers and selling them to the Lankan government and to other parties.

The reason for the introduction of this sticker was to get a correct assessment on the amount of liquor being released to the market by the liquor producers. They did not give us correct statistics. The government loses around Rs 40 billion annually because the liquor producers do not give correct figures. To prevent this, the proposal for fool-proof stickers was made compulsory in 2017. But for printing the stickers they have selected one of the most corrupt companies in the world. We now lose at least 60 billion rupees.”