Excise BSO raids 10 Nilaveli hotels selling liquor sans license

Excise Department’s Bureau of Special Operations (BSO) conducted a raid in Nilaveli over the weekend and seized over 2, 000 bottles of local and foreign liquor to be sold by ten tourist hotels that did not have any license to sell liquor.

The BSO, based in Colombo Excise Head Office that has the authority to carryout countrywide detections raided these hotels and restaurants serving especially the foreign tourists that flock in the Nilaveli coastal belt.

OIC Excise BSO Chief Inspector G N Hemantha told the Daily Mirror that they carried out the raid on a tip-off that those hotels were selling liquor to tourists without possessing any license or permits to do so.

Amongst the seized alcoholic items were beer, local arrack and many types of foreign liquors like imported whiskey, vodka and rum.

He said that these alcoholic beverages had been sold at exorbitant prices such as a bottle of beer had approximately priced at Rs.800.

The Excise sleuths seized 2100 bottles of foreign and local liquor bottles from the 10 hotels. The seized stock of liquor was valued at over one million rupees.

Most of the raided hotels had been established within the past couple of years and are in the category of

Amongst the seized alcoholic items were beer, local arrack and many types of foreign liquors like imported whiskey, vodka and rum

Two Star, having a large occupancy of foreign tourists.

The Excise Dept. arrested ten persons who were reportedly the owners and managers of these premises. They were all to be produced before Trincomalee Magistrate on August 19.

The seized liquor had been confiscated by the Excise Department.

Excise CI G N Hemantha and his team conducted the inquiries on the instructions of Excise Commissioner General Ariyadasa Bodaragama.