Ahmedabad Police seized a large consignment of foreign liquor hidden beneath a load of helmets and arrested a truck driver in the Narol area, officials said on Monday.

Acting on specific intelligence, the PCB team kept watch near Sainath Parking on the S.P. Ring Road close to Aslali Circle. The truck was intercepted late Sunday night for inspection.

During a detailed search, officers found a substantial quantity of foreign liquor concealed beneath 1,053 helmets stacked in the upper portion of the vehicle. Officials said the concealment appeared deliberately designed to evade detection during routine checks.

Bottles worth over ₹63 lakh recovered

Police recovered 10,749 bottles of foreign liquor estimated to be worth Rs 63,86,608. The helmets were valued at Rs 5,25,447.

The Himachal Pradesh-registered truck, along with a mobile phone and cash, was also seized. The total value of confiscated property is estimated at over Rs 84.22 lakh.

Preliminary investigations showed the consignment was loaded in Chandigarh and was being transported to Junagadh, allegedly in violation of Gujarat’s prohibition laws.

Driver questioned; wider network probed

The arrested driver, identified as 38-year-old Johnny Baldevsinh Chandel from Hawani village in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, is being questioned to identify the source and intended recipients of the consignment.

A police officer noted that bootleggers often use legitimate goods as cover to transport illicit liquor across state borders, adding that vigilant surveillance and timely intelligence helped detect the shipment.

Narol police are coordinating with other agencies to trace the wider network linked to the smuggling operation.

Similar seizures reported in Gujarat

The latest seizure follows similar operations in the state. In October 2025, the Sola High Court Police Surveillance Squad intercepted a truck near Gota Bridge carrying boxes labelled as hospital medicine that concealed 5,520 bottles and tins of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth about Rs 30.9 lakh. Two men from Punjab were arrested.

In another case in September 2025 near Kapurai crossroads in Vadodara, the Special Monitoring Cell seized 8,231 IMFL bottles valued at Rs 44.93 lakh from a pickup truck. The vehicle was confiscated and efforts were launched to trace the suspects involved.