KAPRUKA ONLINE LIQUOR SHOP RAIDED

Kapruka selling liquor on pretense of internet gift-products raided   


     The Special Unit of the Excise Department yesterday took steps to take into custody a place which distributed liquor to various locations in Sri Lanka, securing applications from a website on the internet. This website was used to send gift items to houses in Sri Lanka of locals who are overseas. This business has been going on for over 8 years without any permission or licence.

    In this manner it was possible to have the liquor delivered by transport right to the doorstep within a space of a few hours by selecting the required kind of liquor across the internet and complete the transaction by making the required payment through credit card across the same page.

    Under normal circumstances, liquor is not levied to underage individuals by any licensed wine stores in Sri Lanka. In the same way, liquor is not  permitted on Poya days and special days specified according to government regulations. None of these regulations had been applicable to these internet customers. Anybody had the facility of requesting for any quantity of liquor irrespective of age.

   The Excise Department says that this was the first occasion that such a raid was ever conducted in Asia.

   This type of internet wine shop had been operating as a private business under the name Kapruka. They had been involved in this racket of distributing liquor maintaining a website for quite a long time under the pretense of distributing various gift items.

   Employees of this business institution had been supplying liquor to required locations of those who applied for the liquor across the internet. The Special Operations Unit of the Colombo Excise Department used a spy, and 1 suspect connected to the racket was thus taken into custody. After questioning him, the Excise Department officials were able to arrest the owner of the business too. It was said that he was an award-winning businessman. Pursuing along these lines of evidence, the Excise officials were able to take into custody a stock of liquor valued to over Rs.1 million at a warehouse situated along Vijaya Cumaranatunga Mawatha in Kirullaponne which incidentally belonged to this business.

   A spokesman from the Special Operations Unit of the Excise said that Kapruka has not obtained a permit from the Excise Department to distribute liquor across the internet and in any case there is no possibility of securing such a licence. He further said that it is legally prohibited to store as well as distribute liquor in this manner. It had been revealed at preliminary investigations that this racket was in operation for a period of about 8 years and the suspects are expected to be produced before Magistrates Court, Colombo today.