The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached over Rs 21.5 crore in five separate cases of money laundering across the country, including assets worth Rs 1.04 crore of two Gujarat-based businessmen, who allegedly sold "fake" Remdesivir injections packaged in the style of a reputed brand during the second wave of the Covid pandemic last year.
Kaushal Mahendra Bhai Vora and Punit Gunvantlal Shah manufactured fake injections of the antiviral drug at a farmhouse-cum-manufacturing facility in Surat and sold them in Madhya Pradesh and some other states, the agency said.
“The said fake Remdesivir injections were being manufactured by mixing glucose and salt in the deceptively similar bottles having similar stickers to that of branded original injections. Empty bottles of the same size and similar appearance, huge quantities of glucose and salt, huge packing material, fake stickers and other raw materials in huge quantities were seized during the raids conducted at the farmhouse-cum-manufacturing facility at Surat by the Morbi Police, Gujarat,” the ED said in a statement.
"The accused sold fake Remdesivir injections to various vendors who further sold the same to needy retail customers at exorbitant prices. In some cases, the injections were directly sold to retail customers who were identified by the accused persons through social media platforms during the peak of the second wave of COVID-19," it said.
Huge number of fake Remdesivir injections were purchased and injected to various patients at "exorbitant prices" by a hospital based in Madhya Pradesh, the ED probe found.
The anti-viral drug was part of the clinical management of coronavirus patients.
Of the attached assets, Rs 89.20 lakh cash was found in possession of Vora, who "masterminded" the entire conspiracy of manufacturing fake Remdesivir injections and Rs 11.50 lakh cash and Rs 3.92 lakh worth deposits in bank were found in possession of Shah, the co-conspirator in the production and supply of the fake injections.
In a separate case, Rs 1.5 crore of former Odisha BJD MLA Anam Naik was attached by the ED under the anti-money laundering law while it attached 15 immovable properties worth more than Rs 13.51 crore in Servomax India Private Limited bank fraud case worth Rs 402 crore.
The ED also attached assets worth Rs 3.94 crore in a case registered against Nalini Prusty, an Odisha Financial Service officer, Bijaya Ketan Sahoo, an OAS officer (her husband) and others for “assets disproportionate to their known source of income”.