Spurious Medicine Seizure: MD Of Cuttack-Based Pharma Distributor Arrested

Bhubaneswar: The Special Task Force  (STF) of Odisha Crime Branch on Thursday arrested managing director of Cuttack-based Medilloyd Medicament Pvt Ltd Siba Prasanna Jena, the prime accused in the alleged fake medicine procurement case.

Jena’s wife, who is the director of the company, and two key members were arrested the previous day.

The firm had allegedly conspired to procure Favimax tablets from Max Relief Health Care, a dubious drug manufacturing company based in Solan in Himachal Pradesh, at a very low price (Rs 65 per strip of 10 tablets) and sell them at Rs 1290 per strip.

Briefing the media on Wednesday, Additional Director General, Law and Order Yashwant Jethwa had said that over Rs 50 lakh in the bank accounts of these accused and the company had been frozen.

Mumbai Police had arrested two persons, who used to run Max Relief Health Care, earlier this month, and the STF team is now in Maharashtra to collect further evidence, he added.

Further investigation is on by multiple teams of STF in Odisha, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the CB informed in a press release.

DGP Odisha Abhay said that this is a complex case and the STF has scored an early breakthrough with the arrest of four persons, including the main accused.

This racket was busted when the Directorate of Drug Control, Odisha, on June 11 seized 17,400 spurious Favipiravir (drug prescribed for COVID-19 treatment) tablets worth Rs 69 lakh from the godown of a medicine wholesaler at Kanika Chhak in Cuttack city.

Some Favipiravir tablets were also seized in Balangir, Rourkela, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur and Bhubaneswar following raids.

Three days later, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik directed the CB to investigate the case.