The Delhi Police Crime Branch busted an inter-state racket involved in manufacturing, relabeling and distribution of spurious medicines, arresting four accused and uncovering a clandestine drug manufacturing and repackaging unit in the Mukherjee Nagar area of northwest Delhi, officials said on Thursday.
According to the police, the racket was involved in diverting medicines supplied to government hospitals in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, removing their original labels and repackaging them for illegal commercial sale across Delhi-NCR and northeastern states.
The accused have been identified as Manoj Kumar Jain (56), Raju Kumar (57), Vikram Singh, alias Sunny (32), and Vatan (35). The police said Manoj Kumar Jain, operating from Mukherjee Nagar, was the alleged kingpin of the network.
The police got information about illegal diversion and sale of government-supplied medicines in Delhi. Acting on the tip-off, a joint raid was conducted on the premises in Indra Vikas Colony, Mukherjee Nagar, on April 22 with officials from the Drugs Control Department of the Delhi Government and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation also taking part in the operation.
During the raid, the police apprehended Manoj Kumar Jain and recovered a huge quantity of pharmaceutical products, suspected counterfeit medicines, packaging materials, labeling machinery and raw materials allegedly used for illegal manufacturing and repackaging of drugs.
The police said the recovered medicines included counterfeit or illegally relabeled stocks of critical drugs such as rabies vaccines, Hepatitis-B vaccines, insulin cartridges, human albumin injections, anti-D immunoglobulin injections and snake venom antiserum.
Among the major recoveries were over 18,000 Zerodol-SP tablets, 7,900 HepBest tablets, 953 rabies vaccine vials, 1,235 human albumin products of various brands, 315 insulin cartridges and more than 20,000 Cefixime tablets. Four packaging and labelling machines were also seized. The total value of the recovered medicines is estimated to be around Rs 6 crore.
The police said preliminary investigation revealed that government-supplied medicines were allegedly sourced through contacts in hospitals and community health centres in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. The medicines were then transported to Delhi, where original labels and identifying marks were removed before being repackaged and redistributed in the open market.
Investigators alleged that the supply network extended to Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, Imphal and other northeastern locations.
According to the police, Manoj Kumar Jain allegedly started the illegal operation around one-and-a-half year ago after suffering losses in his construction business. During interrogation, he allegedly admitted to procuring government medicines, altering packaging and selling them commercially.
Raju Kumar Mishra allegedly helped establish a counterfeit human albumin manufacturing unit in Dera Bassi, Punjab, after earlier dealing in third-party medicines and medical supplies.
The police said Vikram Singh, a lab technician running a diagnostics centre in Prayagraj, and Vatan, who dealt in surgical supplies, allegedly sourced medicines from government health facilities through internal contacts and supplied them to Jain for relabelling and resale.
Investigators further suspect the use of hawala channels for financial transactions linked to the illegal trade. A detailed financial probe is underway.
An FIR under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act has been registered at Crime Branch police station, Delhi. The police said more arrests and recoveries are likely.
