Fake Hand Sanitiser Racket Busted In Hyderabad After 1 Lakh Bottles Sold For Rs 1.4 Crore

Hyderabad, 18 March 2020:

A fake hand sanitiser manufacturing unit was busted on the outskirts of Hyderabad as police and drug inspectors seized batches of these fake products.

Acting on a tip-off, sleuths of the Special Operations Team (SOT) of Rachakonda, along with police officers of Hyderabad and Ayush Drug Inspector from Telangana, raided the duplicate hand sanitiser manufacturing unit and recovered the fake products.

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Police seized 25,000 units of 100 ml sanitisers and raw materials worth Rs 40 lakh. Investigation has revealed that so far the accused have manufactured and marketed 1 lakh bottles worth Rs 1,44,00,000.

The duplicate hand sanitizer manufacturing unit was busted at Charlapally area of the city at the limits of Kushaiguda police station. The fake products beared the names Semuns Cleansem Hand Sanitizer and Kausthuba Coclean 19 Hand Sanitizer.

Telangana is witnessing a scarcity of sanitisers and face masks since the Covid-19 outbreak.

Police have arrested three involved in manufacturing these fake products and filed cases under Essential Commodities Act, 1955, and other relevant sections of IPC and the Drugs Law.

One of the accused has been identified as Kakarlapudi Krishna Kiran the Managing Director of Seven Hills Softgel Company of Hyderabad and Vemuri Venkata Subramanyam, General Manager of the company.

In another case under Abdullahpurmet Police Station of Rachakonda three other accused were arrested and 2500 bottles of sanitizer and raw materials worth Rs 10 lakh were seized.

The accused Kakarlapudi Krishna Kiran had obtained a license under the name of Ayush Softgel Capsules & Syrups in 2018 and established a factory in the industrial area of Hyderabad and started preparing Ayush Softgel Capsules and Syrups.

As sales of hand sanitisers and similar products swelled across several national markets since the Covid-19 outbreak began in January 2020, both the accused started manufacturing hand sanitisers without using any kind of precautions or following the standards set by Drug & Ayush Departments.

They started manufacturing these fake products under the name Semuns Cleansem Hand Sanitisers, Kausthuba Coclean 19 and Medipro Hand Sanitiser. The groups started distributing these products in around Telangana and Andhra Pradesh through various distributors and supplied the same to leading medical shops. India Today