The Crime Branch’s Special Task Force (STF) on Thursday arrested Siba Prasanna Jena, managing director of the Medilloyd Medicament Private Limited, who is the prime accused in the spurious Covid-19 drugs trading in the State.
The STF action followed its interrogation of Jena at an undisclosed location to unearth more information about the counterfeit drugs racket. On Wednesday, Jena’s wife Subhalaxmi, who is also a director of Medilloyd Medicament, and two others including the firm’s manager Priti Ranjan Parida and godown in-charge Satya Prakash Mohanty haqd been arrested by the STF in connection with the racket.
Later, the trio was sent to the Circle Jail in Choudwar after their bail applications were rejected by a court in Cuttack. The pharma distributor Medilloyd Medicament conspired to procure Favimax tablets (Favipiravir) from the Max Relief Health Care at a very low price of Rs 65 per strip of 10 tablets and planned to sell them at a Rs 1,290 per strip, the STF revealed following the arrest of the three accused.
The STF said multiple teams were formed to conduct investigations and carrying out raids, studying the documents, linkages and networking in other States, modus operandi. Currently, three teams are carrying out investigations in Odisha, Maharashtra and West Bengal. During the probe, it was ascertained that the Max Relief Healthcare is a dubious drug manufacturing company at Solan of Himachal Pradesh. The firm was run by two persons, who were arrested by the Mumbai police earlier in June.