On horseback, inside train engine – Bihar’s booze smugglers and their clever tricks

There is a saying in the Hindi heartland, “Chor ki chaurasi buddhi”, loosely translated as a thief having 84 tricks. Nearly a decade after prohibition was enforced in Bihar, the phrase appears tailor-made for the state’s liquor smugglers, whose methods have grown increasingly inventive in their bid to stay ahead of enforcement agencies and slip past checkpoints in the dry state.

The latest episode unfolded in West Champaran’s Bettiah, where police found themselves taking a horse into custody.

Acting on a tip-off, Nautan police intercepted a smuggler in the Makri Tola area who was ferrying liquor from Uttar Pradesh through riverine routes towards Motihari, not on a motorcycle or four-wheeler, but on horseback. During the search, 29 litres of liquor were recovered from a sack strapped to the animal.

An officer said horses are being used in the Gandak river belt to avoid intensified road checks, which have made motorcycles risky due to engine noise and headlights. Horses, he noted, can quietly traverse fields and narrow riverbanks. Similar cases were reported in the Nautan police station area last year, in March and May, leading to seizures of two more horses.

On the same day as the Bettiah seizure, police in Gopalganj uncovered another attempt to exploit seasonal commerce. On January 13, coinciding with the Makar Sankranti festival, Kuchaykot police seized 927 litres of foreign liquor hidden inside cartons of jaggery, a staple widely used during the festival.

The police had stopped the pickup vehicle based on intelligence inputs about the consignment coming in from Uttar Pradesh.

Last week, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) busted a consignment hidden in the engine room of a passenger train at Buxar Railway Station. The liquor was carefully concealed inside the engine room’s empty spaces and near technical equipment areas, which have restricted access. Officials recovered 51 bottles of various whiskey brands.

Neighboured by non-dry states, such cases reflect a wider pattern in Bihar.

Over the years, enforcement agencies across Bihar have uncovered liquor hidden in school vans, ambulances, milk tankers, oil tankers, tractors with underground compartments, and even vehicles disguised as essential service vans. In March last year, Banka police intercepted a school van that appeared unusually heavy, later discovering over 300 litres of liquor concealed under seats and in the hidden compartment on the roof.

As per an officer in the prohibition unit, smugglers caught recently had modified motorcycles to store liquor in the main fuel tank while running the vehicle on a smaller auxiliary petrol box hidden beneath the seat.

In Gopalganj, hollowed-out LPG cylinders were used to stash bottles, while water supply tankers and oil tankers have been fitted with special compartments to hide thousands of litres of alcohol in other incidents across Bihar.

Liquor has also been concealed within everyday goods such as paint buckets, pesticide containers, pickle consignments, edible oil cartons, wall putty sacks and even bundles of clothing, the officer noted.

In Muzaffarpur, a consignment was found hidden among cartons of painkiller medicines, while in Katihar, a woman was arrested for concealing liquor inside her burqa.

More unusual methods include smuggling across rivers using rubber tubes pulled by ropes, storing bottles inside toilet flush tanks, and hiding liquor in cow dung cakes.

In East Champaran, a container truck meant for transporting new cars was found carrying liquor concealed alongside vehicles. In one of the most bizarre cases reported earlier from Chapra, around 4,000 litres of liquor were seized from coffins used for transport.

In August 2025, authorities found 316 whiskey bottles hidden inside the AC duct of a coach of an express train in UP, which was heading to Bihar. The discovery was made after passengers complained of poor cooling, leading technicians to find the bottles obstructing the airflow. Subsequently, a coach attendant from Khagaria was arrested in the incident. He admitted to regularly smuggling liquor from Uttar Pradesh to sell at double the price in Bihar.

The scale of the problem is reflected in official data. Bihar has been a dry state since 2016, yet police seize around 10,000 litres of liquor on average every day. Since prohibition was enforced, close to three crore litres of liquor have been seized. In 2025 alone, seizures stood at 36.39 lakh litres, about 1.78 lakh litres more than the previous year.

As enforcement tightens, the smugglers’ Marauder’s Map continues to expand, ensuring that Bihar’s prohibition battle ground remains as much a test of ingenuity as of law enforcement.