Jaipur to Gurugram via Agra and Delhi: How Remdesivir reached smugglers

GURUGRAM: After three pharmacists from Delhi, two distributors were arrested from Agra and Jaipur on Thursday in connection with a drug smuggling racket in which Remdesivir, an experimental Covid-19 drug, was being diverted from the National Capital Region (NCR) to the Middle East.
So far, 11 people — six pharmacists and distributors and five foreign nationals, including four Iraqi nationals and a woman from Uzbekistan — have been arrested, while the probe has expanded to four states.
Explaining the supply chain, police said the distributor in Jaipur used to pilfer Remdesivir, a drug that can’t be sold in the open market and is meant to be supplied to Covid-designated hospitals.
He used to supply it to the Agra distributor, who in turn supplied it to some pharmacists in Delhi, who then funnelled it to a pharmacist in Gurugram.
The Iraqi nationals picked up the drugs from him and smuggled them to Iraq with the help of patients and students visiting India.
The accused have been identified as Hariom Tikiwal, 42, from Jaipur and Amit Agarwal, 45, from Agra. Tikiwal runs a pharma firm, Crome Pharmaceuticals, which is a wholesale distributor for Hetero Healthcare Ltd, one of the firms manufacturing Remdesivir.
Agarwal is the owner of MK Distributors of Wholesale Medicine.
Police said Tikiwal used to get Remdesivir for Rs 4,200 per vial from Hetero Healthcare for supplying it to Covid hospitals in Rajasthan.
He used to illegally supply the drug to Agarwal in Agra at a profit. Agarwal further sold the drug to Tarun Goyal of Rudra Medicos in Delhi. Goyal, in turn, supplied it to two other Delhi pharmacists, Sazid and Faizan.
They used to pass it on to Gurugram-based pharmacist Pradeep Kumar, from where the Iraqi nationals got their supply, paying Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 per vial.
After changing hands multiple times, the drug would finally be sold in Iraq for Rs 1 lakh (in Indian currency) per vial. Its MRP is Rs 5,400.
ACP Karan Goyal, who is heading the SIT, said they will take the distributors into police remand for further interrogation.
“We will try to get details about other people involved in the supply chain and how they used to sell the medicine to pharmacists against the norms, or if they were supplying other drugs illegally too,” said Goyal.
While both Cipla and Hetero Healthcare have approval for manufacturing and marketing of Remdesivir for ‘restricted emergency use’ on novel coronavirus patients, the drugs recovered till now have all been manufactured by the latter, an investigator said.
He added that they will soon approach the pharma company as involvement of its employees cannot be ruled out. TOI tried to reach Hetero Healthcare Ltd but did not get a response.
A similar racket was busted last month in Hyderabad in which nearly a dozen people, including pharmacists, hospital staff and employees of a pharma company, were arrested. Gurugram Police are investigating if there is a link to the drug ring operating out of the city.