NCB Gujarat seizes Rs 60 crore drugs in operation against online racket

Ahmedabad: In an operation against a big racket of illegal online sale of schedule X drugs, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of Ahmedabad has arrested four persons of two Mumbai and Vadodara based drug companies and sized such drugs worth around Rs 60 crore.

Schedule X includes narcotic and psychotropic substances-based drugs.
It is a class of prescription drugs in India appearing as an appendix to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules introduced in 1945.These are drugs which cannot be purchased over the counter without the prescription of a qualified doctor. Also, the retailer has to preserve the prescription for a period of two years.

Addressing a press conference here, Zonal Director of NCB, Hari Om Gandhi today said that a total of 10 lakh tablets of scheduled X drugs have been recovered from Mumbai and Vadodara with a total price of Rs 60 crore. Of these around 9 lakh tablets worth around Rs 55 crores have been seized from Vadodara.

Mr Gandhi said that initially on August 4, a packet containing around 100 tablets of schedule X drug Hydrocodone was seized in Ahmedabad. After that raids were conducted on the office, go-down and house of the owner of Dolphin Pharma in Vadodara. Its owner Anil Lohani and manager Zahid Saikh were nabbed. Nine lakh tablets of schedule x drugs like Alprazolam, Diazepam, Zolpidem and Oxycodone were seized. Later in another related raid in MIDC Andheri area on the go-down of K C Pharma with the help of NCB Mumbai, one lakh tablets of such drugs were further seized from Mumbai. The owner and manager of this company were also arrested.

The racket used to take online order of such drugs illegally and sent it to national and international destinations by courier. They used to receive payments in various ways including paypal, western union money transfer and internet banking Mr Gandhi said adding that further investigation to pin down the other members of the racket and the international connections was on

DeshGujarat