The Delhi Police crime branch has busted two syndicates allegedly involved in manufacturing and supplying of spurious life-saving drugs, a senior police official said here on Thursday.
According to the police, a total of ten persons have been arrested in this connection, including the owners of the two fake medicine-making factories, and their associates involved in the entire racket.
The Anti-Gangster Squad teams of the crime branch have also seized a large haul of fake medicines including pain relievers, medicine for type- 2 Diabetes, Asthma treatment drugs, bacterial infections, gastric discomfort tablets, and other important life-saving drugs.
Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch Delhi Sanjay Bhatia, while addressing a press conference, said the equipment for manufacturing these fake medicines and raw materials has also been seized by the police teams.
The value of the counterfeit medicines is estimated to be in crores, the police official added.
The medicines whose counterfeits were manufactured by the accused included Ultracet, Gluconorm, Monocef- O, Pan- D, Amaryl, and others.
According to the police official, the units were traced in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli and Ghaziabad, while a huge stash of fake drugs along with empty printed boxes, packaging material, and machinery was seized.
Initially, the information was received on February 22 regarding counterfeit drugs of important medicines being circulated in some markets of Delhi, following which the police launched an operation to nab those involved in this getting to the root.
Notably, the verification of the fake drugs was conducted with the help of experts and representatives from Lupin, a known medicine manufacturer.
The police further said more tests are being conducted with regard to the effect of these medicines, whether they were harmful or not.
Initially, the police nabbed Upkar Singh and Mukesh, which led to the arrest of an entire chain of the accused persons including the owners and operator of an East Delhi-based chemist who sold these drugs to the public.
The factory owners have been identified as Surender Malik and Vikas Chauhan respectively.
Malik’s factory was located in Shamli, while Chauhan’s unit was in Ghaziabad. Chauhan was caught after a brief chase in the Hindon area, while he tried to destroy the counterfeit medicines, the police said.
The arrested accused include Vikas Chauhan(owner of Ghaziabad unit), Surender Malik( owner of Shamli unit), Parvez Khan, Upkar Singh, Jasdeep Singh, Abdul Basit, Daniyal Ali, Mukesh Kumar, Anil Kumar, and Chander Pal Singh.
During the interrogation of the accused, it was revealed that the fake Ultracet medicine was being manufactured in a factory in Sunder Nagar, Himachal Pradesh by one Anil Kumar who was employed by Surender Malik.
These fake meds were transported through logistics services providers from Sunder Nagar to Panipat. He, thereafter, used to sell the said spurious medicine to Daniyal Ali who is a pharmaceutical studies diploma holder.
Daniyal Ali then sold the drugs to Abdul Bashit who ran a medical store in Geeta Colony, and he used to sell the medicines to Upkar Singh in bulk.
As regards other tablets like fake Amaryl, Gluconorm, and Defcort, that were recovered from the possession of Upkar Singh, the accused revealed that they were procured from another person Vikas Chauhan, who used to manufacture most of the drugs at his factory in Rajender Nagar Industrial area, Ghaziabad.