Six members were arrested for selling expired Remdesivir vials in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: A six-member gang that was selling expired Remdesivir injection vials to Covid-19 patients here were arrested by the LB Nagar police on Monday. The police seized five vials, Rs. 5.52 lakh, mobile phones and a motorcycle from them.

The arrested persons were identified as Lakkisetty Suresh Kumar (57) a Grade II pharmacist with the Andhra Pradesh Medical Infrastructure Development Corporation and a native of Anantapur, Telugupally Chiranjeevi (33), a medical distributor from Secunderabad, Chilukuri Venkat (30), a partner at Life Care Hospital in Nalgonda district, Ganja Shiva Krishna (29) DMO at Life Care Hospital, Uppal, Karra Suresh Kumar (36) former MD of Akshara Hospital Uppal, and Tulasi Srikanth (45) a realtor from Balapur.

According to the police, the six persons formed a gang and were selling the expired vials to people at high prices after tampering with the the manufactured and expiry dates on the boxes.

Lakkisetty Suresh sold the injections to the other gang members after tampering with the expiry and manufactured date along with the price. Five of his associates then sold it to different persons at a huge price and made profit, said V Ashok Reddy, Inspector (LB Nagar), adding that it was on the basis of a complaint from a buyer that the LB Nagar police registered a case and took up investigation.

After nabbing Suresh and Chiranjeevi, the police realized the magnitude of the fraud and the subsequent investigation led to the arrest of the rest.