Bhubaneswar: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Odisha Crime Branch on Thursday arrested the prime accused in connection with spurious drugs trade in the State.
The accused identified as Siba Jena is the Managing Director of Medilloyd Medicament Private Limited.
Earlier on Wednesday, the STF had arrested three persons including one of the directors and two staff of the company in connection with the case.
Recently, on June 10, a huge cache was seized from M/s. Medilloyd Medicament Private Limited in Kanika Chhak, Cuttack during a raid by the Drug Controller of Odisha. In the past two days, stocks of fake COVID medicines were seized from other districts including Bolangir, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Rourkela and Bhubaneswar.
Acting on a tip-off from the Food and Drug Administration, a special squad of Drug Controllers of Odisha raided a wholesale pharmaceutical store at Kanika Chowk in Cuttack, seizing 170 boxes containing 17,000 fake Favipirapir tablets. A firm had allegedly purchased 58,000 ‘Favimaxin-400’, tablets, investigations revealed.
Following this, case no. 22/ 2021, U/S 275/276/420/467/468/471/120 B IPC r/w 27 C Drugs and Cosmetic Act 1940 was registered and a detailed probe launched.
Later, multiple teams were formed to conduct thorough investigation, including conducting raids, studying the documents, linkages/ networking in other states, modus operandi etc.
