The police have seized over 150 vials of Remdesivir, which were allegedly smuggled from Bangladesh, and arrested six people across the State, including two in Chennai.
The accused were identified as S. Vishnu Kumar, 25, from Virudhunagar; Shanmugam, 35, and his brother Ganesan, 30, from Kovilpatti; Praveen Kumar, 28, from Tirunelveli; B. Bhuvaneswar, 36, of Maduravoyal; and R. Nishit Bandari, 32, from Kondithope, in Chennai.
A special team received information that a person was delivering Remdesivir medicines and deployed a decoy. They arrested Vishnu Kumar, a pharmacist in a private hospital on Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road near the Kandigai bus stop.
He told them that Shanmugam had sent him the vials. On Thursday night, Shanmugam and Ganesan were arrested in Kovilpatti and 42 vials were seized from them. During interrogation, Shanmugam revealed that Praveen Kumar had sent him the vials, following which he was arrested in Tirunelveli and four vials were seized from him.
On interrogating Praveen Kumar, they found that he had procured the drug from a pharmaceutical company in Maduravoyal. On Friday, the police nabbed Bhuvaneswar, the company’s owner.
On further interrogation, they learned that Nishit Bandari had originally sent him the vials. The police seized seven vials from him and 145 vials from Bhuvaneswar.
Nishit had received the vials from another pharmaceutical company in Hyderabad, who imported the drug from Bangladesh.
‘Exercise caution’
The police appealed to the public to not fall prey to fraudsters offering to sell Remdesivir over social media and mobile messaging platforms.
V. Balakrishnan, Joint Commissioner of Police, East, said, “Some fraudsters claim that they have a stock of Remdesivir and offer to send it to the concerned hospital where the patient is admitted.
They ask buyers to make payments through mobile wallets. People should be more vigilant and not fall for such schemes on social media and mobile messaging platforms. We appeal to the public to pass on the information to us.”
