Delhi Police have busted a medicine racket making counterfeit life-saving drugs using the names of big pharma companies such as Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline.
Six people, including the main accused, Rajesh Mishra, have been arrested, police said.
During the raids, authorities reportedly seized around 150kg of loose tablets, 20kg of capsules, and thousands of counterfeit branded drugs, including 9,000 fake Ultracet tablets and 6,100 fake Augmentin 625 tablets.
Two illicit manufacturing units at the heart of the operation were uncovered in Jind in Haryana, and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, authorities said.
According to police, the counterfeit drug ring operated through an extensive network spanning multiple Indian states, with hubs in Moradabad, Deoria, and Gorakhpur in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and in Panipat and Jind in Haryana, and Baddi and Solan in Himachal Pradesh.
The gang used encrypted apps and fake bank accounts to run the business, police told the media.
“The syndicate used social media platforms to initiate contact with new suppliers and customers. Communications were carried out through encrypted messaging platforms, and payments were routed via hawala and fictitious accounts to avoid detection,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Harsh Indora said, according to The Indian Express.
Mr Mishra, the alleged kingpin, who had experience in the pharma industry, copied real packaging to make the fake medicines look genuine, police said.
The breakthrough came after police received a tip-off from an informant about a major consignment of counterfeit medicines headed to Delhi. Police said that their team laid a trap at a petrol pump in Civil Lines in north Delhi on 30 July.
DCP Indora said that experts from Johnson & Johnson and GSK, who were called in to inspect the seized stock, confirmed the medicines were counterfeit. Follow-up raids, triggered by information provided by the accused, exposed a vast and well-organised supply network spanning multiple states and involving several players, Mr Indora said.
This is not the first time counterfeit drugs have been confiscated in India. Over the past few years, authorities across various states have repeatedly uncovered fake medicine rackets, many involving life-saving drugs.
In July this year, police in Uttarakhand arrested Devi Dayal Gupta, owner of Dr Mittal Laboratories Pvt Ltd in Delhi, who was allegedly the mastermind behind a multi-million counterfeit drug racket operating across India for four years.
His arrest followed the earlier detention of three accomplices and the seizure of fake packaging materials of reputed pharmaceutical brands, The New Indian Express reported.
Mr Gupta’s factory allegedly produced over 14.2m fake tablets and 2,00,000 capsules, including counterfeit versions of widely used medicines.
Last year, another fake drug racket that operated from two flats at DLF Capital Greens in West Delhi’s Moti Nagar was uncovered by Delhi Police Crime Branch and the Delhi government’s drug control department.
Seven individuals, including staff from hospitals in Delhi and Gurgaon, were arrested in connection with the racket.
Authorities seized over 140 vials of counterfeit medication, worth nearly Rs40m in the open market, along with sealing machines, packaging material, labelled vials, printed inserts, and rubber seals.
According to drug control officials, the accused “used disposable syringes to fill innocuous substances into the vials, which were manually sealed and sold to unscrupulous dealers”.
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