Money make 'Disaster Drugs'

By Rakhee Sharma

To Ambuj Sharma, director in the foreigner's division of the Union Home Ministry, the May 15 call from the Indian Embassy at Tashkent was crucial. As the first secretary spoke, the dormant suspicion that spurious Indian medicines were being sold in Russia and CIS nations over the past 18 months was almost confirmed.

A few days later, Sharma received a letter from the embassy. This time it detailed how 'tourists' from Uzbekistan, Kazakistan, Russia, and other CIS nations were visiting India only to return with fake drugs which were now flooding the markets in those countries. The tourists, it was learnt, would carry Chinese silk, diamond powder, tungsten wire, even gold, and deliver them to the doorsteps of traders spread from Haryana in the north to Karnataka in the south, and return with spurious drugs. The drugs ranged from common paracetamols and pain killers to high-end antibiotics.

On September 9, following several raids across Haryana and Delhi, the police arrested four Uzbek women, along with the alleged kingpin in India. As much as 800 kg of spurious drugs valued at Rs 2 million were recovered from them. The women---Nafisa Taskand, Karasach Bobomurotova, Malika and Maya---are all aged between 35-40. Chander Prakash Marwah, 45, the kingpin, is based in Delhi. All the five were arrested under the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetic Act.

That the quintet was operating with the help of a countrywide network was evident. The drugs, it was found, were manufactured at various pharmaceutical plants in Noida, Ghaziabad, Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Nabha (Punjab), Parwanoo (Himachal Pradesh), Okhla (Delhi), Mehboob Nagar, Ranga Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), N.G. Lane (Mumbai) and Pithampur (Madhya Pradesh).

You Can Barely Tell the Difference
The fake drugs carry genuine names like Timosule, Decasone, Ampicillin, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol Hydrocholride, Dagrevit, Neoaroxine, Dexacin, Cilectrode, Coldact, Oxytocin, Tinidazolum, Clotrimazolum, Spasmalgon, Kenoteh and Metronidazole. Apart from being sold abroad, the police discovered that the drugs were now awash in the Indian markets as well.

The racket was also linked to a case in Chennai early last year when a young lady was admitted to a private hospital for a minor surgery. The surgery went off well, but when the patient developed sudden complications it transpired that she had been administered, by unsuspecting doctors, fake Ceftazidine, a bactricidal injection to prevent infection. Laboratory tests on the seized vials had drawn a blank. All that government scientists could determine was that there was 'zero active ingredient in the vial'.

In Tamil Nadu, 18 cases have been registered against fake manufacturers. The Directorate of Drugs Control has even cancelled the licences of six major wholesale drug dealers, suspecting large-scale foul play. "Nobody can make
out these fakes from their looks. And it is an extremely difficult task to do sample testing on a large-scale," says V. Muthukrishnan, Tamil Nadu drugs control director.

The packaging gives nothing away. Take Crystal Pharmaceuticals, an Ambala-based maufacturer charged in a Tamil Nadu court with producing fake Amoxycillin, Erythromycin, Cotrimoxazole and Dexamethazone. The spurious samples seized had the original labels and packing. But laboratory tests revealed that the active ingredient was missing in most. The contents made all the difference. When a strip of Doxycycline capsules was opened up and the capsules broken down, it transpired that they contained not medicinal powder, but turmeric.

Yes Please and Other Hotspots
The high demand for these drugs has seen the number of trips made by spurious drug dealers increasing over the past year-and-a-half. The Uzbek women's team, for instance, had made 22 trips to India during this period. And rampant unemployment in the economically weak CIS countries has seen many such teams visiting India. "There is high profit in carrying back fake
medicines and selling them in the CIS countries," says Uday Sahay, DCP, whose special team cracked open the Uzbek case.

Many of the women couriers, it is learnt, also indulge in prostitution to earn more money to support large families back home. "After reaching Tashkent, or other destinations, these couriers tie up with locals who in turn distribute the spurious medicines to retailers after putting Russian markings," confirms a senior official at the Indian Embassy at Tashkent. Interestingly, nearly a fourth of the drugs seized in Delhi and Haryana had
Russian markings prepared by dealers in India to expedite the sales process.

According to Intelligence sources, Delhi is the hub for the thriving market. A large number of 'tourist' hotels in the congested Paharganj and Karol Bagh areas---Yes Please, India International New, India International Old, Saini, Vir Inn, Golden Deluxe and Taj Prince--- were found catering to the traffic from Uzbekistan, Kazakistan and other CIS nations. Hotel Saini in Paharganj is the favourite since at Rs 150 a night, it easily offers the most competitive room rates. Middlemen pick up their consignments from hotels like these and money with the tourists changes hands smoothly. A normal shopper from a CIS nation spends not more than three-four days in India because boarding and lodging costs cut into profits back home, but the drug couriers stay as long as 25-30 days.

Marwah, the kingpin of the racket in Delhi, was picked up from a banquet hall called Vatika in the Old Rajender Nagar area and fake medicines worth Rs 80,000 were seized from him. Subsequently he told the police about manufacturing bases at Sonepat and Faridabad in Haryana, and at Nangli Devat, a village on the outskirts of Delhi. When the police teams raided these factories jointly with the Drugs Control Department of Delhi, they
found that several of the spurious drugs, ready for shipment, were misbranded. "Besides, none of the women could produce purchase records for the drugs they possessed," says L.N. Agarwal, drugs controller, Delhi.

Though much of the operations of the racketeers is in the open now, the police has a long way to go still. The market will have to be deweeded as large consignments of spurious drugs are already on the shelves. That, by no means, is an easy task.