UP Drugs Department Targets 12 Additional Firms in Black Market Cough Syrup Case
UP files cases against 12 more ghost pharma firms.
The Uttar Pradesh Food and Drugs Department has escalated its crackdown on the illicit trade of codeine-laced cough syrups, registering fresh criminal cases against 12 additional pharmaceutical companies in Varanasi whose premises were found either locked, abandoned or converted into unrelated shops. This brings the total number of firms facing prosecution in the ongoing smuggling racket to 38.
Inspector Janab Ali of the department revealed that the initial FIR against 26 companies was lodged on November 15 following intelligence inputs about large-scale diversion of addictive cough syrups to the black market. During verification, authorities identified another 12 suspicious entities operating from addresses in the holy city’s crowded wholesale drug markets.
When inspection teams visited these locations, they discovered that most addresses either housed grocery stores, garment shops or remained permanently shuttered with no trace of pharmaceutical activity. Some premises displayed faded signboards of the licensed firms, but neighbouring traders claimed the companies had vanished months or years ago, raising suspicions of shell operations created solely to procure bulk quantities of scheduled formulations containing codeine.
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Notices were served to the registered proprietors demanding clarification about their operations and stock records. With none of the 12 firms responding within the stipulated period, the department moved Kotwali police station on Friday to register a separate case under relevant sections of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and NDPS provisions for manufacturing, stocking and supplying habit-forming medicines without legitimate records.
The widening probe has exposed systemic loopholes that allowed dozens of bogus or dormant licences to order thousands of bottles of codeine-based syrups, which were subsequently smuggled across state borders or sold illegally to addicts. Authorities indicate more arrests and seizures are likely as the investigation traces the supply chain backward to manufacturers and forward to underground distribution networks.
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