Banned in India, Sold in Mumbai Anyway: Chembur Shop Owner Booked Over Selling Pakistan-Made Goree Face Cream

A shop owner in Mumbai's Chembur area has been booked for allegedly selling a banned skin cream manufactured in Pakistan, after a tip-off led the city's crime branch to raid his store and seize the product. The case now has officers trying to trace exactly how the cosmetic, carrying a clear "Made in Pakistan" label, ended up on his shelves in the first place.

How the raid unfolded

Officers from Crime Branch Unit-6 received specific information that the shop, identified as Tony Land on Central Avenue Road in Kamalkunj, Chembur, was stocking the banned cream. Acting on this input, a police team carried out a raid at the store on the evening of June 23. To confirm the tip-off, the team first sent in a decoy buyer who purchased the product before officers stepped in to inspect it formally.

The cream turned out to be Goree Beauty Cream with Lycopene, a product made in Lahore, Pakistan, with the country of origin printed on its packaging along with batch details confirming where it had been manufactured.

What was seized

Police recovered five boxes of the cream from the shop, together valued at around Rs 2,495. One box has been kept aside for chemical testing, while the remaining four are being held as evidence in the case.

When questioned, the shop owner, identified as 52-year-old Sanjay Shah, was unable to produce purchase bills or any import documentation for the product. He reportedly told police he had sourced it from a trader operating out of Crawford Market, a detail investigators are now looking into as they try to map out the supply chain behind the product.

The charges against him

Police have booked Shah under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with provisions of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. According to police, the sale itself was a direct violation of a Directorate General of Foreign Trade notification issued on May 2, 2025, which bars the import of goods originating from Pakistan.

A cream with a troubled history of its own

This is not the first time Goree Beauty Cream has come under scrutiny, and notably, not just in India. Health authorities abroad have flagged the same product for safety concerns. 

New Zealand's medicines regulator, Medsafe, issued a public warning back in 2021 specifically naming Goree Beauty Cream with Lycopene, alongside two other creams, for containing mercury and lead. The regulator cautioned that mercury exposure can affect the nervous system, kidneys, lungs, and skin, and may also harm unborn babies, while lead exposure can affect neurological development, particularly in children.

In other words, the same product now at the centre of this Mumbai case has already drawn safety warnings well beyond India's borders, adding another layer of concern to a story that started as a straightforward import-ban violation.

Not the first time this year

The Chembur case fits into a pattern that has played out repeatedly across Maharashtra in recent months. Just weeks earlier, a viral video out of Pimpri-Chinchwad raised similar questions, after a woman said she had found a "Made in Pakistan" tag stitched into a bedsheet she bought from a stall at the Sankashti Chaturthi fair near the Shri Morya Gosavi Temple in Chinchwad.

According to her account, the bedsheet looked completely ordinary at the time of purchase. It was only after washing it at home that she noticed the label tucked into one corner. She recorded a video questioning how a Pakistan-made product could be sold openly at a local religious fair, and the clip spread quickly online. While her claim has not been officially verified, the Pimpri-Chinchwad police took note of the video and formed a team to trace where the bedsheet had actually come from and how it reached the fair.

Before that, police in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar had carried out a larger crackdown after receiving complaints that traders in areas like Shahganj, Ghasmandi, and City Centre Mall were openly selling cosmetics imported from Pakistan. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had also flagged the issue to the city's Police Commissioner. Acting on this, City Chowk police raided three shops at once, seizing cosmetic products worth around Rs 60,000 and arresting three traders, who were sent into two days of police custody as the investigation continued.

A question that keeps coming back

Taken together, these cases, a cosmetic shop in Mumbai, a bedsheet stall at a temple fair in Pune, and cosmetics seized in Sambhajinagar, point to the same unresolved gap. Despite a clear ban on goods imported from Pakistan, these products keep surfacing in ordinary local markets, often through small traders and informal supply chains that are hard to track. In each case, police have opened an investigation into the source, but the larger question behind all of them remains the same: how do these products keep entering the country in the first place, again and again?

Read More: Woman Finds ‘Made in Pakistan’ Bedsheet in Maharashtra’s Chinchwad Temple Fair, Video Goes Viral | WATCH