Expired medicines racket busted, 5 S Bengal districts under scanner

Kolkata: Police have identified five districts in the South Bengal where expired medicines have been sold rampantly. A detailed probe has been going on in this regard.

The investigators have also identified some distributors who are involved in this illegal activities. The matter came to light after the detective department of the city police busted a racket from the Canning Street, which was involved in replacing the old labels of expired medicines and circulating the medicines in various markets with a new label on them.

Police also came to know about the names of some pharmaceutical companies, which were involved in the expired medicines racket.

Some of these companies used to allegedly send their machines to businessmen in Burrabazar area. They would erase the expiry dates using some machines and put new expiry date labels. Police are also investigating if the expired medicines were sold from any medicine shops in the city.

Senior officials of the Drug Control Board and police jointly raided several places and seized the expired medicines, which were given a new label on them.

The dates on each strip of medicine would be removed by using a chemical and then a new label would be attached to them. In the course of investigation, police came to know about the business of expired medicines and that, it is rampant in the five South Bengal districts.

Police have also identified the people involved in the business.

They are investigating to ascertain if any outside racket is involved in the incident. It may be mentioned here that a few months ago, the Hooghly district police seized a huge amount of expired medicines from a truck.

The investigators gathered some important information related to the modus operandi of the racket.