Gang selling adulterated Ayurvedic medicines busted 10 held

New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Delhi Police busted a gang allegedly involved in selling adulterated Ayurvedic medicines and products of reputed companies and arrested 10 people in this connection, officials said on Tuesday.
     The accused ran three fake call centres and cheated 6,373 people to the tune of Rs 1.94 crore by selling them adulterated products, they said, adding the gang operated from Lucknow and Delhi.
     The matter came to light after a representative of Unayur Marketing Pvt Ltd (UMPL) lodged a complaint with cyber cell alleging that fake, spurious, misbranded and adulterated medicines were being delivered to their customers by some unidentified persons representing themselves as the employees of the company, police said.
     These fraudsters called the clients of the company from different mobile numbers and lured them by offering medicines at discounted rates, they said.
     "The accused had data of patients and potential customers and lured them by selling medicines at discounted rates. However, these medicines caused issues as they were not genuine. The marketing company (UMPL) approached us saying their data was stolen and someone was cheating their clients. It alleged that its customers have lost Rs 1.94 crore," Prashant Gautam, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell), said.
     During investigation, several bank accounts and call detail records were analysed. Information was also collected about the courier companies which supplied these medicines, he said.
     "We found that the accused were operating from Delhi and Lucknow. The location of cell phone numbers also matched the locations but the addresses of the accused were not available. Several teams were sent and and raids were conducted. The accused were then traced at three call centres," Gautam said.
     One centre was found located in Swaroop Nagar in outer Delhi, while two others were in Lucknow's Indira Nagar and Jankipuram, he said.
     "A total of 10 gang members were arrested from the two cities and boxes of adulterated medicines were seized," the official said.
     One of the accused, Rahul Singh, is alleged to be the mastermind of the gang and he operated from Indira Nagar, Lucknow, along with other accused Ugarsen, Samar Singh and Jitender Singh, he said.
     Rahul got details of the customers from an associate named Rajesh who worked with a telecom company. He sold data on 60 per cent commission on profits, the DCP said, adding Rajesh was also arrested in connection with the case.
     Police claimed to have recovered 42 phones, data of various companies and boxes of medicines.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)