From The Economic Times · PTI · · 1m 30s
Sacred temple sweets tainted with palm oil
India's enforcement agency arrests ghee supplier for adulterating Tirupati Laddu with chemicals and palm oil worth 230 crore rupees.
In brief
India's enforcement agency arrests ghee supplier for adulterating Tirupati Laddu with chemicals and palm oil worth 230 crore rupees. The ghee supplied to Tirupati temple for making sacred sweets was adulterated with palm oil and industrial chemicals, not pure cow ghee as claimed. Originally reported by The Economic…
Temple sweets made with fake ghee
The Enforcement Directorate arrested Kailash Chand Mangla of Sukriti Foods on September 17 for supplying adulterated ghee to Tirupati temple instead of pure cow ghee.
What was actually in the ghee
The ghee contained refined palm oil, palm kernel oil, palmolein and chemicals like MG-90, monoglycerides, and acetic acid ester, not cow ghee.
Scale of the fraud uncovered
Fraudulent ghee supplies to the temple from 2019 to 2024 totaled 230 crore rupees, with Mangla's factory producing 96 crore rupees worth of the adulterated product.
How the scheme operated
Mangla sourced adulterants, manufactured fake ghee at his factory, and distributed it through front companies like Sri Vyshnavi Dairy and A.R. Dairy Foods to hide the fraud.
False records covered the tracks
Mangla created fake purchase and sale records for ghee and refined palm oil to conceal the use of adulterants and make the operation appear legitimate.
Other arrests in the case
The Enforcement Directorate previously arrested Vipin Jain, promoter of Bhole Baba Organic Dairy Milk, on similar money laundering charges related to the same ghee adulteration scheme.
The one thing
The ghee supplied to Tirupati temple for making sacred sweets was adulterated with palm oil and industrial chemicals, not pure cow ghee as claimed.
