The scariest horror stories are not on Netflix and the multiplexes, they’re lurking outside our very houses, in the shadows. Have you heard of the ‘fake cancer drug racket’, busted about 3 months ago? It must have been drowned out with all the ‘election news’ which hogged prime time.

Yesterday, (July 17), three months after a fake cancer drugs racket was busted, Delhi Police revealed in their chargesheet that eight patients who consumed the spurious medicines were traced as part of the investigation. Tragically, one of these patients died after consuming the fake cancer drug. The chargesheet, filed in Tis Hazari court, shows that the accused worked in top hospitals in Delhi and Gurgaon.

Serial killers, no less!

The criminals, it is said, ‘sourced’ empty vials of these expensive, critical medicines from pharmacists or hospital staff. They refilled these vials with spurious substances and then sold them through pharmacists and websites. More than 140 vials of the fake medication — worth around Rs 4 crore in the open market — were seized by the police in March. This racket had been going on since 2021-2022, it is said.

It is horrifying to think about the number of lives these serial killers have snuffed out with their fake injections.

Among the eight traced patients was one from Uzbekistan who bought six injections for Rs 5.92 lakh, and another from Jammu and Kashmir who bought two injections for Rs 1.80 lakh. Other patients came from Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, and West Bengal, each spending lakhs on what they believed were life-saving treatments.

The chargesheet detailed the tragic case of a man from Bihar’s Madhubani. His wife, suffering from mouth and lung cancer, underwent treatment at Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute (RGCI) and Buddha Cancer Hospital in Patna. Advised to get a ‘Keytruda’ injection, he bought four injections for Rs 3.60 lakh through an online marketplace, Indiamart, from one Luv between April and August 2022. Two of these spurious injections were administered to the patient. Her condition deteriorated, and she died on September 11, 2022.

The crackdown earlier this year on March 12 led to the arrest of seven individuals, including employees of Delhi and Gurgaon-based hospitals, during raids by the Inter-State Cell of the Crime Branch and the Delhi government’s Department of Drugs Control. Five more were arrested later. The accused include Viphil Jain, the kingpin, and others like Suraj Shat, Neeraj Chauhan, and Tushar Chauhan, all with roles in the oncology departments of prominent hospitals.

Putting it Together

Investigators found that the accused bought empty vials for Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000, refilled them with spurious substances, and sold them for Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 through pharmacists and websites. Notices were served to four hospitals, and their replies, part of the chargesheet, corroborated that the batch numbers on the recovered anti-cancer injections matched those manufactured by the company. This proved the accused misappropriated the injections from their respective hospitals for personal gain.

RGCI revealed that Tiwari and Abhinay were responsible for Cytotoxic drugs mixing daily, while Fortis Memorial Research Institute stated that Jitender worked as a clinical pharmacist in the Department of Hematology, Hemato-oncology, and Bone marrow transplant. Venkateshwar Hospital said Bisht was in charge of Onco-Daycare, supervising all patients undergoing chemo medication. Millennium Cancer Center confirmed that Sajid was responsible for drug-mixing and chemo administration.

Apart from selling vials to suppliers, the accused also used the online business platform Indiamart to promote the sale of spurious anti-cancer injections, with seven accused registering themselves on the platform.

For those of us who are close to cancer patients and survivors, it is our duty to ensure that our friends and loved ones are not cheated and harmed in this way. This isn’t a dark net story. Even so called ‘legit’ online platforms can be used by charlatans and schemers. For heaven’s sake, be really careful when somebody offers you a critical drug at a ‘wholesale’ price, even if the fellow is from a super-specialty hospital!

  Bihar, cancer, Delhi Police, Indiamart, Keytruda, naked truth, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute