Thrissur: As many as 160 liquor cases containing over a thousand litres of country-made foreign alcohol was seized on Sunday from a toll plaza at Paliyekkara in Thrissur district of Kerala, an excise official said.

Assistant Excise Inspector Anoop Kumar from the Irinjalakuda Excise Range Office said that he and his team nabbed the accused, transporting the liquor in his Mahindra pick-up vehicle from Mahe to Thiruvananthapuram around 1 am on Sunday.

The liquor cases, containing 1,440 litres of alcohol, were being transported in the vehicle by hiding it under coconuts, the official said and added that the seizure was based on a tip-off received by the excise department.

The hidden liquor cases were detected after a thorough search of the vehicle, he added.

Kumar also said that they were aware of this modus operandi of transporting liquor from Mahe and therefore, were always on the lookout for such vehicles.

The seized liquor was only meant for sale in Puducherry and it is an offence to transport it to Kerala, the official said.