Crime Branch cracks down on fake Remdesivir manufacturing unit, 5 held

Days after two men were arrested for alleged black marketing of Remdesivir, a drug used to treat Covid-19 patients, the Crime Branch’s Inter-State-Cell unearthed a ‘pharmaceutical’ unit at Kothdwar, Uttarakhand, which was manufacturing fake Remdesivir injections. Police have arrested five people, including a woman, and found that they have sold 2,000 injections so far.

Delhi Police Commissioner S N Shrivastava tweeted a video, saying: “Delhi Police working on useful information arrested five culprits in a prolonged investigation and unearthed a ‘pharmaceutical’ unit at Kothdwar, Uttarakhand, manufacturing large quantities of fake Remdesivir injections (COVIPRI) sold at price over Rs 25000… In all, 196 ready to sell fake Remdesivir injections were seized. From the premises, packing machines, 3,000 empty vials for packing Remdesivir were recovered. Accused further disclosed that he already sold 2,000 fake Remdesivir injections to desperate people.”

Last week, a team led by ACP Sandeep Lamba had arrested two men – Mohammed Shoaib and Mohan Jha – from outside Batra cinema when they had come to collect money after giving injections.

“During investigation, police came to know about their other gang members and arrested two more persons from Delhi. On their instance, police conducted raids and arrested one Vatan Kumar Saini from Roorkee. He was running a manufacturing unit and police also found that his unit was earlier sealed by the drug department of Uttarakhand,” a senior police officer said.

“We then came to know that there is a chain of persons involved in this syndicate of illegally supplying drugs for treatment of Covid-19 patients. Two accused work as medicine representatives and after getting fake medicine, they were circulating their numbers on social media. They started selling at a cost between Rs 25,000 and Rs 40,000 and circulated their numbers on social media,” an officer said.