Mumbai Crime: Seven sell remdesivir at higher prices, held

Bhavesh Shah, Sudhir Pujari, Ashish Kanojia, Ritesh Thombre, Rahul Gala, Gurvinder Rathod and Vikas Dubey

It didn't take long for fraudsters to find something to do even in this pandemic. The Mumbai Crime Branch, in a joint operation with the Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), unearthed a racket wherein the drug Remdesivir, being used to treat COVID-19 patients, was being sold at a price higher than MRP. In a trap laid by Crime Branch and the FDA, seven people involved in the racket were arrested from different locations in Mumbai and 13 remdesivir vials recovered from them. They were selling each for Rs 30,000 when the MRP is Rs 5,400.

The trap
According to Mumbai Crime Branch, FDA Inspector Sharadchandra Nandekar got the tip off about the Remdesivir being sold for a higher price, and he approached Mumbai Crime Branch Unit 7. Its officials along with FDA laid a trap by contacting the main distributor, identified as Bhavesh Shah, 46, and he agreed to provide the Remdesivir vials.

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"The FDA officials contacted him and he agreed to supply remdesivir vials for R30,000 each. We arrested two accused from LBS Road, Mulund when they came to handover the drug to dummy customers sent by FDA," said Akbar Pathan, DCP, Crime Branch.

The accused were identified as Rahul Gala who is a pharmacist associated with a chemist store, and Vikas Dubey, who also works for it. The Crime Branch arrested them after they handed over a Remdesivir vial and took R30,000 from the FDA officials. The Crime Branch recovered seven Remdesivir vials by Hetero Labs Ltd from them. The police then arrested Bhavesh Shah from his residence in Thane, and found that he is a distributor with pharma companies. During the interrogation he revealed about Ashish Kanojia, another distributor from Antop Hill.

"We raided his residence and seized six more Remdesivir vials of Cipla," Pathan added.

Probe continues
The Crime Branch also arrested three more involved in the racket, Ritesh Thombre, 32, who works with a marketing company, Guruvinder Singh Rathod, 35, who is associated with a pharma company and Sudhir Pujari, 41, works with a distributor company which supplies drugs for Cipla. "These distributors who work for leading pharmaceutical firms started selling the life-saving drugs in the black market at an arbitrary price, and before it reaches the actual patient it costs around Rs 30-Rs 40,000," said another police officer.

The Crime Branch is now looking into distributors of Hetero labs Ltd, who are suspected to be involved the racket. "We assume that a large number of drugs have been sold at such high prices to needy patients, our investigation is underway and soon there will be more arrests," the officer added.

Rs 30,000
Amount they were charging for single vial of remdesivir

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