FDA seizes fake cosmetics worth over Rs40 lakh

DNA Correspondent
Friday, August 29, 2008 04:14 IST







In a major raid conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials, duplicate and substandard products of a German cosmetic company worth Rs40.50 lakh were confiscated on Thursday. The raids were conducted at three shops, two in Andheri and one at Goregaon. All the shops were owned by Ramesh Devichand Jain.
Dhanraj Khamatkar, commissioner of FDA told DNA this was one of the major raids conducted by FDA’s drug division. Suhas Chaudhari, joint commissioner of FDA, Greater Mumbai region, explained the modus operandi of the shopowner. “Jain was dealing in cosmetics namely PAC, DK Cosmetics, Face-2-Face, which were labelled as ‘marketed by R Matai, Hanover, Germany. However, it was found that these products were not imported in finished form for sale and were assembled and manufactured in Mumbai without any cosmetic manufacturing licence.” FDA officials seized stocks worth Rs1.15 lakh from the two shops in Andheri.
However, Jain was unable to provide relevant purchase bills or the source of cosmetics and other components used in the making of the final products, officials carried on with investigations. They discovered that Jain had another shop in Oshiwara and conducted a raid there.
They found that Jain had a manufacturing unit at the shop with raw material, packaging material, stickers, cartons and empty bottles worth lakhs. An FIR was lodged at the Oshiwara police station on Wednesday.
Chaudhari said the products were being used by many leading movie and television personalities. They include cake make up, shining brush, translucent powder and eye shadow. The three shops owned by the accused are Kundan Novelty Bhandar at JP Road and Kundan Cutlery at Adarsh Nagar, both in Andheri West, and Kundan Cutlery at Naikwadi in Goregaon (East).