Operation Jai Exposes Spurious Drug Racket; Three From Hyderabad Arrested

Hyderabad: A coordinated inter-state operation named ‘Operation Jai’, jointly executed late Thursday evening by the state Drug Control Administration (DCA), the commissioner’s task force and Malakpet police, led to the arrest of a gang of spurious, counterfeit drug manufacturers and dealers.

This is a major breakthrough as the three separate teams, acting on intelligence inputs, unearthed an illegal unit in Malakpet and arrested three persons involved in distribution of spurious drugs in TS, who network with a pharma factory ‘Nectar herbs and drugs, based in Kotdwar, Uttarakhand.

They seized three cartons containing 27,200 tablets of ‘MPOD-200 tablets’, worth Rs 7.34 lakh. These tablets were labeled as manufactured by 'Meg Lifesciences, Khasara Palli in Sirmour, 173 001,' which is a non-existent company, said V. B. Kamalasan Reddy, director general (DG) DCA said.

Aravapalli Satyanarayana was caught selling spurious drugs to the co-accused Vangari Naveen at Musarambagh crossroads after purchasing them from Gandla Ramulu of Meerpet.

Ramulu revealed during interrogation that the spurious drugs were received from Vishad Kumar of Kotdwar after placing orders for spurious drugs to Sachin Kumar (from Roorkee) and Vishad Kumar through WhatsApp calls.

“Our teams conducted a surprise raid on Nectar herbs and drugs at Sigaddi. We also understood their modus operandi,” he said.