Mumbai: The Kasturba Marg police on Monday arrested two men who took inspiration from the movie 'Special 26' and allegedly faked their identity posing as food safety officers to raid various restaurants and departmental stores in the Andheri-Dahisar stretch for over five years.
Dharmesh Shinde, 24 and Avinash Salunke, 27 – both Kandivali residents – would pose as Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officers and conduct a complete inspection of the store.
Conmen used to levy hefty penalty
They would inspect the kitchen areas, safety measures, food standards, expiry dates on packages, etc, after which they would make a detailed report with the amount of penalty written at the end. The duo would then collect bribes from the store owners to not pursue the matter.
The accused allegedly also travelled in a car with 'Government of Maharashtra' written on it to avoid suspicion. They would study food safety standards using YouTube. To date, the police have found records of over 76 stores that were raided by the accused, said the police.
The police have recovered two books from the accused in which they maintained a record of every restaurant / store they raided, along with all details including the faults found, description, penalty, etc, written in neat handwriting in English, even though the main accused has not finished schooling while the second accused has cleared his Class 12 (HSC) exam.
Matter comes to light on Sunday
Some details in the books included – 'employee found smoking cigarette in kitchen area' and 'staff without gloves while handling food'. Some hotels were penalised with amounts over Rs1 lakh. The accused said they maintained a record so they could revisit the stores to check if they met food safety standards and take another bribe in case they failed.
The matter came to light when the accused went to raid a hotel in Borivali around 11.30am on Sunday and after inspection asked the owner to give a bribe of Rs5000. “The interesting part was that the owner of the hotel knew an actual officer from the FSSAI with the same name and realised that the man in front of him was a fraud. He immediately called and asked him but the main accused ran away, while the second accused was caught. Later, using the second accused, we arrested the main accused as well within 24 hours,” said senior police inspector Anil Ahwad of Kasturba Marg police.
