Hyderabad: Hyderabad police on Wednesday busted a racket running counterfeit and spurious spice products with the arrest of 14 people, including the kingpin from Uttar Pradesh.

Those arrested include the kingpin Rajesh Gupta and two of his associates from Uttar Pradesh and 11 wholesalers from Begum Bazar, the business hub of Hyderabad.

Police investigations revealed that the gang was running a massive racket of manufacturing and supplying duplicate spices. Police raided a shed in the congested bylanes of Begum Bazar where the gang was mixing hazardous chemicals and other material with the spices and selling them at half the price of the original.

Satyanrayana, deputy commissioner of police, Hyderabad said that the gang was running the racket for the last two years. “They were supplying the spurious spices like black pepper, poppy seeds and black cumins not only to Hyderabad markets but as far as Delhi and Jharkhand”.

The modus operandi of the gang was to manipulate the material using chemicals in such a way that they will appear to be original spices.

“Rajesh Gupta was well versed in the use of chemicals in this process,” he said. The gang was using red oxide, black oxide, chemical paints, lubricants, gum and even the particles of brooms in this process.

To make Papaya seeds appear like pepper seeds, the gang used to put them in the fluid mix of red and black oxide and after taking them out polish them. To what extent the gang was minting money was obvious from the fact that the spurious pepper was being sold for Rs450 per kg against the market price of Rs1,000 for black pepper.

Seeds of grass, used to make brooms, were mixed with the black cumins. Even semolina used to make idlis was also not spared. A mix of glucose and gum will be mixed with semolina.

While the details of these dangerous practices left the common consumers shocked to the core, the wholesalers told police that they were not aware of the activity of the gang. “When asked how they believe the supplier who sells spices at half the market price, they simply said they were not aware of the adulteration. But we don’t believe their claims of innocence,” Satyanarayana said.

Police have seized about 1,000 bags of adulterated spices and was trying to find out the details of shops and the hotels which were supplied with these dangerous materials.

Rajesh Gupta belongs to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh and before moving his base to Hyderabad he had also run the racket in Delhi, police said.