Beneath Hyderabad’s booming food economy lies a dark web of adulteration, mislabelling and unsafe practices. Of late, an unprecedented police-led crackdown is pulling back the curtain on a sprawling food fraud network that thrives on gaps in regulation and consumer trust. But as enforcement tightens and complaints surge, the city finds itself trying not just to fix a broken food chain, but also to restore faith in what lands on every plate, write Serish Nanisetti and Lavpreet Kaur