10, including two doctors, arrested for selling fake Covid-19 and mucormycosis medicines

Police said they busted a makeshift manufacturing unit set up at a doctor’s house in south Delhi’s Nizamuddin

Ten people, including two doctors, have been arrested for allegedly running an interstate syndicate involved in manufacturing and black marketing fake injections that were used in the treatment of Covid-19 and black fungus diseases, police said on Sunday.

The police team used a decoy customer and, along with officials of the drug control department, laid a trap and caught one Waseem Khan from near Jamia Nagar Metro station where he had come to deliver the injections.(Photo by Raj K Raj / Hindustan Times) (Raj K Raj / HT Photo)

Police said they busted a makeshift manufacturing unit set up at a doctor’s house in south Delhi’s Nizamuddin. They also seized a total of 3,293 fake injections, including 858 vials of Amphotericin-B injections and 206 vials of remdesivir injections, from the arrested persons.

According to police, the arrested doctor was previously picked up in April by the Ghaziabad police for black marketing of remdesivir injections.

Police identified the alleged kingpin as Altamas Hussain, who completed his MBBS in 2012 and was allegedly running the racket with Amir, another doctor who completed his MBBS in 2016, and their associates Mayank Taluja, Waseem Khan, Mohammad Faizal Yasin, Shoaib Khan, Afzal, Shivam Bhatia, Mohammad Aftab, and Faizan. Police said Aftab is Hussain’s brother.

DCP (crime) Monika Bhardwaj said that on June 17, Delhi’s drug control department’s head of office, Atul Kumar Nasa, informed the crime branch that one Mayank Taluja was involved in black marketing of Amphotericin-B injections used for treating black fungus.

Accordingly, the team used a decoy customer and, along with officials of the drug control department, laid a trap and caught one Waseem Khan from near Jamia Nagar Metro station where he had come to deliver the injections.

During subsequent investigation, police raided a medical shop in Jamia Nagar, a firm in Saket and finally Hussain’s house in Nizamuddin where the drugs were prepared.

“We recovered 3,283 vials of different fake injections to treat Covid and black fungus. A laptop, two printing machines and raw materials for printing labels were also recovered,” DCP said.

Nasa said that the raid also unearthed other fake drugs at the site. “When we reached there, we also found spurious remdesivir and tocilizumab,” he said. The samples of all medicines have been sent to the lab for analysis.

DCP Bhardwaj said Hussain was arrested from Deoria in UP.

Amphotericin-B cannot be sold directly by any drug store in Delhi. It is supplied to the hospitals directly by stockists after approval by a government committee.