Delhi Police Busts Interstate Illicit Pharmaceuticals Trade Racket, Four Held

In the case of an interstate racket allegedly behind the production, re-label and sale of fake prescription medicines, the Delhi Police on Thursday arrested four people who were part of the unit identified as an illegal processing and repackaging unit in the Mukherjee Nagar area in the northwest of the city.

According to police, the activities were alleged to be diversion of medicines meant for government hospitals from Uttar Pradesh, removal of original labels and identifying marks and sale of the same after repackaging in Delhi-NCR and the north-eastern states.

Among the arrested suspects is the alleged kingpin Manoj Kumar Jain from Mukherjee Nagar, Haryana's Raju Kumar Mishra and Vikram Singh (nicknamed Sunny and Vatan) from Prayagraj.

Also Read: Delhi to Sign MoU for AI-Driven Air Pollution Monitoring and Management

The syndicate was circulating counterfeits of various lifesaving medicines, including rabies vaccines, snake venom antiserum, insulin, Human Albumin and Hepatitis-B vaccines, said police, which was a serious threat to public health.

"A team of the crime branch had been constituted on April 22 to gather intelligence regarding the illegal trade of spurious and government-supplied medicines in Delhi," Deputy Commissioner of Police Pankaj Kumar said in a statement.

In the course of the operation, police had specific information that an organised gang was engaged in the process of taking medicines sent to government hospitals, stripping them of their original labels and relabelling them to be sold in the commercial market in Delhi-NCR and the north eastern States.

They acted upon the information and coordinated with the Delhi government's drugs control department and did a raid in an premises in Indra Vikas Colony, Mukherjee Nagar.

Drug inspectors of drug control department and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation were also on the spot during the raid.

"During the search, the team apprehended Manoj Kumar Jain from the premises and recovered a huge quantity of branded medicines, government supply drugs, suspected counterfeit medicines, packaging and labelling material and machinery allegedly used in illegal manufacturing and relabelling," the officer said.

The recovery has revealed that there was a well-entrenched network involved in the large-scale manufacturing and distribution of fake medicines, police said.

A case was lodged with Crime Branch police station under relevant provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act on April 23.

During the raid, the team seized thousands of tablets, capsules, and injections and vials. The recovered stock consisted of 7,900 HepBest tablets, 6,000 Azithromycin tablets, 7,800 Lenvakast, 6,300 Lenvatol capsules, 953 rabies vaccine vials, 18,000 Zerodol-SP tablets and 9,000 Vitamin D3 injections, the officer said.

The police also recovered 55 snake venom anti-serum injections, 260 Anti-D immunoglobulin injections, 315 insulin Cartridges, 2,500 doses of Hepatitis-B vaccine and over 20,000 tablets of Cefixime besides loose tablets, packaging material and four labelling and packaging machines.

The total market value of the recovered medicines is estimated to be around ₹6 crore, police said.

Investigators say Manoj Kumar Jain was the man behind the syndicate.

While being interrogated, Jain has told police that he had previously been associated with the construction industry in Manipur but along with his family, he came to Delhi in 2024 in search of better opportunities due to losses in the construction business. He began manufacturing fake medicines from his Mukherjee Nagar pharmacy around 1½ years ago, with Raju Kumar Mishra.

According to police, Jain confessed to buying government-approved drugs, changing their labels and selling them on the open market. He had allegedly revealed that the medicines were given to centers in Delhi, West Bengal and the north eastern states.

Also Read: Delhi Mayor Orders MCD Officials to Strengthen Sanitation, Warns Against Any Laxity

Earlier, Raju Kumar Mishra up to Class 12 studied, had worked in his brother's clinic and had a medical knowledge of how to handle medicine and supply related issues, police said. He allegedly made significant profits during the Covid-19 pandemic by running a mask and glove business and then became involved in the pharmaceutical business.

Mishra then formed a section to produce the counterfeit Human Albumin in the Derabassi area of Punjab and started working with Jain to distribute medicines in the north eastern region of the country, police said.

Vikram Singh or Sunny, who also holds a diploma in lab technology, was running a diagnostics centre next to a hospital in Prayagraj, police said. He confessed to investigators during interrogations that he had seen excess medicines being stored unused in hospitals at government facilities and was intent on diverting these for resale.

Police said that Vikram and Vatan procured medicines like Azithromycin, rabies vaccines, insulin at government hospitals and community health centres in Prayagraj on their own and then they relabelled them and started selling them to Jain.

An MBA graduate, Vatan began trading masks and sanitisers in the pandemic and later became a part of the illegal medicine network, helping the procurement of medicine from the government's health facilities in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

"Vatan was arrested in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in Madhya Pradesh in 2025," the officer said.

The accused is believed to have taken the original labels off the medicines supplied by the government and put on fake packing for them to be sold in various parts of Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, Imphal and elsewhere in the country using a secret lab in Mukherjee Nagar, investigators said.

"Preliminary investigation has also revealed suspected use of hawala channels for routing money generated through the illegal trade," the officer said, adding that a detailed financial probe is also underway.

Police said the four accused are all in police custody and further investigation is ongoing to find other members of the syndicate and track other supply chains.

Also Read: Lakhimpur Kheri Case: Accused in Sexual Exploitation of 6-Year-Old Arrested After Police Encounter