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Free medicines for the poor stolen, resold with fake labels; Delhi cops bust Rs 6 crore racket
Police arrested 4 men who diverted the medicines, tampered with their packaging, and resold them illegally across Delhi-NCR and several Northeastern states.
A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, police said, adding that efforts to identify additional members of the network and trace the full extent of the supply chain is also on.
Stealing medicines of diabetes and hepatitis B meant to be given to the poor for free, putting fake labels on them, selling them in the black market in the Capital — an inter-state racket did it all to make money from life-saving medicines, Delhi Police said.
Police arrested four men and dismantled the clandestine unit operating out of North Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar. The accused — identified as Manoj Kumar Jain (56), Raju Kumar (57), Vikram Singh alias Sunny (32), and Vatan (35) — were allegedly part of the organised network that diverted the medicines, tampered with their packaging, and resold them illegally across Delhi-NCR and several Northeastern states.
According to officers, the operation was being run by Manoj. Originally from Rajasthan, his family migrated to Manipur in the 60’s and started a construction venture. However, police said, they incurred losses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“After losing money, the family started a business of masks and sanitisers. Manoj subsequently came in contact with people involved in the medicine business. In 2023, he moved to Delhi and shook hands with Raju,” said a police officer.
Raju, a veteran in the medicine industry, was already running an illegal manufacturing unit in Punjab, police said. “Raju is believed to have leveraged his prior experience in the pharmaceutical trade to set up a parallel counterfeit manufacturing unit in Punjab, including the production of human albumin, a critical drug used in emergency and trauma care,” said an officer.
Manoj started an illegal manufacturing and relabelling unit at his residence in Indra Vikas Colony. When the police reached his residence on April 22, they found syringes, labels and bottles. The total value of the items is estimated to be around Rs 6 crore.
“Manoj understood that the consignments could be tracked easily if they were sent directly from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi. Therefore, he asked Vikram to send them via Guwahati. These drugs were then transported to Delhi where the original labels were removed and replaced with fabricated ones to get rid of tags of hospitals and health centres, before being pushed into the open market,” said an officer.
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Among the drugs seized, police said, were critical medicines such as rabies vaccines, insulin, human albumin, Hepatitis B vaccines, anti-snake venom, and antibiotics.
It was Vikram who procured the medicines, police said. Vikram, a lab technician who runs a diagnostics centre in Prayagraj along with Vatan, sourced surplus medicines or diverted medicines from local hospitals and community health centres, they said. “Vikram started procuring the medicines left in stock every month, which were meant to be given to patients for free at government hospitals in Uttar Pradesh. Those were siphoned off through local contacts and sent to Delhi,” an officer said.
Jain would handle the relabelling and redistribution, police added.
“The scale and sophistication of the operation indicate a well-organised network that posed a serious threat to public health,” a senior officer said.
Investigators also found preliminary evidence suggesting the use of hawala channels to route financial transactions linked to the illegal trade. Police said a detailed financial probe is underway.
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Police said the network had an extensive distribution chain spanning Delhi, West Bengal and Northeastern states such as Assam and Manipur, raising concerns over the widespread circulation of compromised medicines.
A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, police said, adding that efforts to identify additional members of the network and trace the full extent of the supply chain are also on.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pankaj Kumar said more arrests and recoveries are likely.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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