Bengaluru: A local court in the city Wednesday handed one of the key operators of the fake drug racket, Veeresh Kumar Jain, to seven-day police custody.Proprietor of Krupa Health Care at Minerva Circle, Jain was arrested last week after special investigation team sleuths raided his unit. He was in judicial custody at Bengaluru Central Prison.“We wanted to take Jain into 15-day custody for detailed questioning. However, the court has granted us time until Sept 22. We will question him to ascertain the modus operandi of the racket,” an investigating officer said.According to the officer, Jain and his associates, including Prashanth, allegedly replaced substandard medicines with international-brand medicines and sold them to hospitals at significantly higher prices. “Prima facie, we found that a medicine manufactured by an international company such as Pfizer, which produces prescription medicines and vaccines for conditions in immunology, oncology, cardiology, endocrinology and neurology, was sold to hospitals for Rs 5,000 per unit. Jain, however, would allegedly replace it with a lower-priced medicine that he purchased for Rs 180. This enabled him to make a difference of Rs 4,820 per unit,” the officer said.Prashant to get deported soonAn IPS officer said the police were working with the government to facilitate the deportation of the second prime suspect, R Prashant, from Azerbaijan.Prashant, a resident of Papareddipaly and a pharmacist, had travelled to Azerbaijan in mid-July to purchase medicines. However, immigration officials allegedly accused him of attempting to sell his passport to locals for money and subsequently impounded it, sources said.
