A midnight delivery, two undercover cops: How a Rs 50-crore counterfeit drug network across five states was busted

Because of its addictive properties, the drug is tightly regulated under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. In illicit markets, however, the same raw material is used to manufacture unregulated tablets that are often abused for their opioid effect, officials said.
The idea of the police trap that night in Lajpat Nagar was simple: to lure the courier into delivering the package and catch him in the act.

“We had asked a trader to place the order so that we could catch the courier while he was delivering the consignment,” a senior Crime Branch officer said. “The goal was to trace the supply chain behind the material.”

S-I Vikasdeep and ASI Kuldeep had been waiting for hours, checking their phones from time to time for a signal that the delivery was near.

Occasionally, a vehicle passed through the otherwise empty lane.

Just before midnight, the faint buzz of a two-wheeler echoed from the end of the street.

A scooter turned into the lane. The rider slowed, glancing at shop numbers as he approached the meeting point. Strapped to the footboard of the vehicle was a brown packet weighing a couple of kilograms. Inside, investigators said, was the Tramadol premix.

Believing he was making a routine delivery, the rider stopped near the designated spot. The two men in civilian clothes stepped forward.

Within minutes, the packet had been opened and the rider taken into custody. His name was Anirudh Rai, a 49-year-old resident of Delhi.

“At first it looked like a routine seizure,” an investigator said. “But once we began questioning him, it led us to a much larger network moving pharmaceutical raw material across multiple states.”

What began as a small late-night delivery soon pointed investigators toward what they said was a supply chain stretching across at least five states – linking pharmaceutical suppliers in Uttarakhand, traders in Delhi’s wholesale medicine markets, and a counterfeit drug manufacturer hundreds of kilometres away in Bihar.

At the centre of that network, investigators said, was allegedly a warehouse in the city of Roorkee in Uttarakhand.

“The pharmaceutical belt around Roorkee has many small manufacturers,” a police officer said. “When factories shut down or stock remains unsold, middlemen sometimes try to divert the raw material into the illegal market.”

The warehouse in Roorkee

Roorkee lies in Uttarakhand’s expanding pharmaceutical belt, where clusters of small and medium drug manufacturers and chemical suppliers operate. The industry grew rapidly in the early 2000s, after Uttarakhand was carved out of undivided Uttar Pradesh and government tax incentives and subsidised infrastructure attracted companies and led to the emergence of numerous contract manufacturing units.

Among those working within this ecosystem was Amit, a 45-year-old supplier who had spent years trading in pharmaceutical raw materials.

In 2019, he allegedly purchased a warehouse, investigators said. The modest concrete structure, located near several small factories, was used to store bulk supplies of chemical ingredients destined for drug manufacturers.

“Amit was known in local pharmaceutical trading circles as someone who could arrange raw materials,” a senior officer associated with the investigation said.

Some time last year, investigators said, a trader approached Amit with a proposal.

The trader allegedly needed a place to store roughly 20 kilograms of powdered Tramadol premix.

According to investigators, the plan was to gradually release the stock into the market through intermediaries.

“The understanding, according to our investigation, was that Amit would keep the stock in his warehouse and manage the supply to buyers,” said an officer who was close to the investigation.

“The profits would then be shared between him and the trader who had sourced the material,” the officer said.

Such arrangements, officers said, often emerge in areas with dense pharmaceutical manufacturing clusters.

“When factories shut down or excess stock remains in the warehouses, middlemen sometimes try to move the material quickly,” a Crime Branch officer said. “Some of it eventually enters the illegal supply chain for psychotropic drugs.”

To move the material, investigators said, Amit allegedly turned to a contact who had once worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

The broker in the deal

Storing the material was only the first step.

To move the Tramadol premix out of Roorkee and to connect with buyers in other cities, Amit needed someone who could arrange deals and coordinate deliveries, investigators said.

“He could store the stock, but he still needed someone who could move it and find buyers,” a Crime Branch officer said.

In the pharmaceuticals grey market, police officers say, such intermediaries often play a crucial role. Many are former employees of drug companies or small distributors who already have contacts with manufacturers, transporters and wholesale traders.

Amit allegedly turned to one such contact.

This was a 33-year-old man from Aligarh named Prashant.

Prashant held a Bachelor of Commerce degree and had once worked for a Delhi-based pharmaceutical company, Vipul Life, according to investigators. After losing that job in 2019, he spent some time driving for the motorcycle taxi service Rapido before returning to the pharmaceutical trade.

In 2021, police officers said, he joined another pharmaceutical company in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, a town known for its cluster of generic drug manufacturers.

It was during a business visit to Roorkee the following year that he met Amit.

“The two men allegedly developed a working relationship over time,” said an investigator associated with the case. “Amit had access to raw material, while Prashant had contacts with traders willing to buy it.”

According to Crime Branch officers, Prashant allegedly began acting as an intermediary, connecting Amit to buyers across North India.

“He basically functioned as the bridge between the supplier and the people who wanted the material,” another officer said.

Some of those connections eventually allegedly led to traders operating in Delhi’s wholesale medicine markets.

And through that chain, investigators say, the Tramadol premix eventually made its way to the courier who was stopped in Lajpat Nagar that September night.

The courier on the scooter

Rai lived in Jaitpur, a densely populated neighbourhood in southeast Delhi.

He owned a small packaging unit in nearby Faridabad and was allegedly drawn into the trade through a relative involved in pharmaceutical sourcing, according to investigators.

“His relative allegedly introduced him to buyers who were looking for these substances,” a Crime Branch officer said.

Police said Rai soon began purchasing pharmaceutical raw material from suppliers and selling it to traders operating in Delhi and nearby regions.

The margins were substantial.

“From what we have found so far, he allegedly procured the raw material for around Rs 18,000 per kilogram and sold it to traders for nearly Rs 50,000,” an officer familiar with the investigation said.

Once the raw material entered Delhi, investigators said, it typically moved through wholesalers and traders before being processed further.

“In many cases, the material is converted into tablets in small, unlicensed facilities,” a Crime Branch officer said.

Officials said such distribution networks often intersect with Delhi’s large wholesale medicine markets.

For decades, Bhagirath Palace near Chandni Chowk has been one of the country’s largest medicine trading hubs. Police say it has also long been a meeting point for traders dealing in spurious or unlicensed medicines. In recent years, some of these transactions have shifted to nearby markets such as Sadar Bazaar, investigators said.

“There is constant demand for cheaper medicines,” a Crime Branch officer said. “When genuine stocks run low or prices increase, counterfeit or unlicensed products enter the market.”

Many of those products, investigators say, are manufactured in small factories scattered across northern India.

In this case, according to police officials, one such facility was operating in Bihar.

The factory in Patna

In Patna, a young businessman named Tanishq Jha had inherited his father’s pharmaceutical company. This company had once operated legally, manufacturing generic medicines under licence. But by the time police began tracing the supply chain uncovered in the Delhi case, the factory’s licence had expired.

“His father had been running a legitimate pharmaceutical business earlier,” a Crime Branch officer said. “When Tanishq took over, the manufacturing licence was no longer valid, but the facility and equipment were still there,” he said.

According to investigators, the factory had allegedly begun producing counterfeit medicines, including cough syrups bottled under the labels of well-known pharmaceutical brands and allegedly sold at discounted prices in wholesale markets.

“Units such as these already have the machinery, labour, and basic supply chains required to manufacture medicines,” an officer said. “Once production slows or licences lapse, some operators begin producing counterfeit products because the margins are high.”

Months before Rai’s arrest in Delhi, Jha allegedly placed an order for Tramadol premix through Amit’s network in Roorkee. According to investigators, the raw material was intended to be converted into tablets at the factory.

“The premix is essentially the base ingredient,” a Crime Branch officer said. “Once it reaches a facility with tablet-making machines, it can be processed into finished drugs fairly quickly.”

By the time investigators reached the factory earlier this year, however, the Tramadol had allegedly already been converted into tablets and moved out of the facility.

During the raid, officers recovered large quantities of alleged counterfeit cough syrups.

“These were being bottled using the names of established pharmaceutical brands,” another officer said. “They were then allegedly sold at lower prices in wholesale markets.”

Police say such factories often form the final manufacturing link in a larger illegal supply chain.

“You have suppliers of raw material, brokers who connect buyers and sellers, transporters who move the goods, and finally these manufacturing units where the raw material is converted into tablets or syrups,” a Crime Branch officer said.

The crackdown on the network

Since the scooter delivery in Lajpat Nagar last September, Delhi Police investigators say they have seized counterfeit medicines and psychotropic drugs worth nearly Rs 50 crore as part of the case.

According to Crime Branch officers involved in the investigation, the arrests have also revealed how widely the alleged illegal trade has spread.

“The supply chain we uncovered was not limited to Delhi,” a police officer said. “It extends across several states.”

Investigators said the network stretches across Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Bihar.

Police officials also said some products manufactured from allegedly diverted pharmaceutical raw materials are eventually exported.

In February, Delhi Police officers seized psychotropic tablets worth around Rs 9 crore at Mundra Port in Gujarat, according to investigators. The consignment, concealed in boxes labelled as household goods, was allegedly being shipped to the United Kingdom.

To investigators, cases like these illustrate how easily pharmaceutical ingredients can slip out of the legal supply chain and enter allegedly illicit networks.

“Many factories shut down or change ownership frequently,” a Crime Branch officer said. “When that happens, warehouses are sometimes left with stock of pharmaceutical raw materials.”

Once diverted, officers say, the materials can move rapidly through informal distribution networks.

“What begins as surplus inventory in a pharmaceutical hub can travel hundreds of kilometres,” an investigator said. “It moves through traders, brokers and small manufacturers before eventually appearing in the market as counterfeit or unlicensed medicines.”

Or, as officers say happened in this case, it can end up in a small brown packet strapped to the footboard of a scooter on a quiet street in Lajpat Nagar.