Four held for black marketing Remdesivir, 81 vials recovered

Cracking down on persons allegedly hoarding and black marketing Covid-related life saving drugs, Delhi Police on Friday said it arrested four men belonging to two separate interstate gangs over the past three days and recovered from them 81 vials of Remdesivir injection

Cracking down on persons allegedly hoarding and black marketing Covid-related life saving drugs, Delhi Police on Friday said it arrested four men belonging to two separate interstate gangs over the past three days and recovered from them 81 vials of Remdesivir injection. Further searches are being conducted in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi by teams of the crime branch to nab other members of the two gangs and make more recoveries, police said.

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“The racketeers were well aware of the scarcity of Remdesivir and other drugs used in Covid treatment across the country. They started hoarding these drugs and sold them in the black market at exorbitant rates. They have a set network of persons who supply the injections on demand. They were selling Remdesivir injections for ₹25,000 to ₹40,000 per vial. The key players are still absconding,” said deputy commissioner of police (crime) Monika Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj said the crime branch had been receiving information that some gangs were hoarding Remdesivir and other life saving drugs as the demand for these medicines rose manifold due to the sharp increase in Covid cases.

The crime branch teams -- tasked to identify and crackdown on these racketeers -- used dummy customers to strike deals with the racketeers and catch them red-handed. One such customer contacted a person who assured delivery of one vial of Remdesivir injection for ₹25,000 at Parmanand Chowk near GTB Nagar in north Delhi.

On April 21, the team caught Talwinder Singh alias Sajan, belonging to Amritsar in Punjab, and recovered from him three vials of Remdesivir injections. Questioning revealed that members of his gang were supplying injections across India using a courier company in Chandni Chowk. Police searched the company’s office and arrested Jitendra Kumar, who charged ₹2,000 as commission for delivering each Remdesivir injection. Their questioning led to the recovery of 68 more vials.

“The duo revealed a network of persons involved in hoarding and supplying these drugs. They charge the customers according to their financial status. Even when in our custody, Singh received a request from a person who was ready to pay ₹50 lakh as several members of his family were Covid positive,” said a senior police officer, who did not want to be identified.

In the second operation, another team arrested Shaoib and Mohan with 10 vials of Remdesivir injection from outside Batra hospital in south Delhi. They belong to a different gang that also procured such drugs from Punjab and Haryana.

“Questioning of the four arrested persons have led to the recovery of 81 vials of Remdesivir. We feel that the arrest and interrogation of the key players of these syndicates may lead us to any pharma company from where these drugs are illegally re-routed to these people,” the officer said.