A gang that posed as employees of a pharmaceutical company to sell fake medicines to pharmacies and patients has been busted with the arrest of 10 persons, Delhi Police officers aware of the case said on Thursday.
The arrests were made in April and May from different locations in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh after the pharmaceutical company in question approached the Delhi Police’s cyber crime unit, said Prashant Gautam, deputy commissioner of police for the unit.
The officer said that the gang was operational since 2017, and in this period, they have duped over 6,300 persons of at least ₹1.9 crore.
The officer said that the gang had a team of telecallers who had obtained a database of pharmacies and patients. “They would pose as employees of the pharmaceutical company and offer to sell medicines at a heavy discount,” said Gautam.
The medicines being sold were meant to treat issues such as diabetes, blood pressure, orthopaedic and sexual ailments, the police said. “The medicines the fraudsters sold them were actually fake, counterfeit or spurious,” the officer said.
Once the police received a complaint, they registered a case and carried out raids in three call centres in Delhi and Lucknow to arrest 10 persons over a course of several days and recover a large stock of the fake medicines.