New Delhi, Dec 10 Enforcement Directorate (ED), Jalandhar Zonal Office, has arrested an accused who was found to be involved in generation and acquisition of Proceeds of Crime through illegal sale of psychotropic tablets such as Tramadol and Alprazolam, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002, the ED said on Wednesday.
The name of the accused is Abhishek Kumar, who was arrested on Tuesday.
According to the ED, he was produced before the Special Court (PMLA), 2002, SAS Nagar, and the Special Court has granted six days of ED custody of the accused.
ED initiated an investigation based on an FIR registered by the Punjab Police under various sections of the NDPS Act 1985 relating to the large-scale inter-state trafficking of psychotropic tablets and capsules, particularly Tramadol and Alprazolam.
Thereafter, a search action was conducted at 16 premises linked with Abhishek Kumar and other entities, which resulted in the seizure of various incriminating records.
According to the ED, the “investigation revealed that the middlemen men viz, wholesalers and retailers, were procuring huge quantities of psychotropic tablets from pharmaceutical firms/manufacturing companies, namely M/s Biogenetic Drugs Pvt. Ltd., M/s CB Healthcare, M/s Smilax Pharmachem Drug Industries, M/s Aster Pharma, M/s Soul Health Care (I) Pvt. Ltd, and were diverting it for sale in the black market at a higher cost than the retail price, through drug peddlers, thereby generating huge Proceeds of Crime (POC).”
“Abhishek Kumar, through his firm, M/s Shree Shyam Medical Agency, procured bulk quantities of these psychotropic tablets from wholesalers/manufacturers and illegally diverted/sold approximately 75 per cent of the stock of these psychotropic tablets out of books,” it added.
In order to conceal these illicit transactions, the corresponding boxes were shown as legal sales by inflating the number of boxes in the legal bills, thereby generating POC to the tune of Rs. 3.75 Crore in cash.
According to the ED, further investigation is in progress.
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