Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) officials have nabbed two people for selling and storing counterfeit medicines worth Rs 2 crore. The seized medicines were fakes of many of the country’s leading pharma companies, including Sun Pharma, Alkem, Cipla, Glenmark, GSK, Abbott, Novartis, Dr. Reddy’s, and Aristo. In fact, the seizure, billed as one of the biggest, was possible because of a Sun Pharma complaint and call records of the accused, officials said.
A Health Ministry official said CDSCO’s Kolkata office got a complaint from Sun Pharma Laboratories Limited on January 11 regarding the sale and storage of fakes of their products at a shop in Kolkata’s Bagri Market.
One of the drug inspectors on the investigating team spoke to Moneycontrol on conditions of anonymity and said, “We conducted simultaneous raids on January 17 and 18 in Bagri Market and seized spurious/counterfeit drugs linked with top manufacturers. The quantity that we seized from one shop was worth Rs 10 lakhs,” he said.