NAFDAC DISMANTLES FAKE BOTTLED WATER RING IN RIVERS

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The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has achieved a major milestone in its ongoing efforts to purge the nation of counterfeit goods: breaking apart a phoney bottled water ring.

After receiving a tip, the fake water ring at Pipe Line Road, Eneka, Port Harcourt—which manufactures fake Eva water—was busted.

NAFDAC’s Public Relations Officer for Rivers State, Cyril Monye, said in a statement that the offenders ran their operations out of a dilapidated building that was mistaken for a pool house.

They used cloth-covered rubber funnels as improvised filters to fill used Eva plastic bottles with tainted water from a paint bucket.

Attaching pre-printed Eva labels to the bottles and capping them with fake Eva caps was an illegal scheme.

Monye disclosed that one distributor, Chibunna James, was arrested during the raid while he was loading the contaminated water for sale.

The operation’s ringleader is still at large, but NAFDAC is actively looking for leads to find and capture them.

The public is being urged by Rivers State’s NAFDAC Coordinator to come forward with any relevant information that could help in the capture of those responsible for the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit goods.

Monye also revealed that thirty packs of the fake goods were seized and taken to the NAFDAC headquarters in Port Harcourt for additional scrutiny.

He mentioned that in order to prevent circulation, the uncorked bottles were emptied and wasted.