Delhi Police bust pirated books racket, arrest 1 and issue notice to 5 others

“The team conducted sustained technical surveillance on a digital entity operating under the name BookBhandar.in. Based on actionable inputs, the team raided the residence of accused Anmol Kiro, age 27, in Mayur Vihar Phase-I, Delhi. During the search, 42 pirated books of reputed publishers were recovered from his residence,” said Vikram Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime).

The police said Kiro’s interrogation revealed a multi-level operation, with the chain starting with a vendor in Daryaganj named Naved, who gave orders to create negatives of famous books and plates for printing them to Hilal Mohammad, 40, who has a factory.

The negatives were then collected by Naved and given to Kamran, 37, a publisher with a printing press in Hauz Kazi, according to the police.

“A printing machine, ADAST Dominant 714, was seized from the premises. He disclosed that two months ago, he printed books for Naved as per order. He stated that he accepts printing jobs from various clients as his livelihood,” DCP Singh said.

Naved then sent the books to Sunil Gupta, who distributed them across the country via couriers and received payments into an account managed by his brother, Lalan Gupta.

“During the interrogation of Anmol Kiro, the supply chain was further developed. A raid was conducted at Ganesh Nagar and Pandav Nagar, from where 18 different titles comprising 686 pirated books were recovered. The seized books were properly sealed, documented, and deposited in the maalkhana,” DCP Singh said.

The police claimed that Sunil and Lalan used automated invoices to dupe customers who placed orders on their website. Sunil, Lalan, Kamran, Naved and Hilal have all been served notices under section 35(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

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