UP illegal cough syrup case: ED carries out raids in multiple states

Lucknow, Dec 12 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate on Friday raided multiple locations in various states as part of a money laundering probe against an alleged illegal codeine-based cough syrup (CBCS) trade racket in Uttar Pradesh, officials said.

The searches covered more than 25 premises in Lucknow, Varanasi, Jaunpur and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh apart from those located in Ranchi and Ahmedabad, they said.

The locations covered include those of "absconding" main accused Shubham Jaiswal, his Chartered Accountant (CA) Vishnu Aggarwal, alleged associates Alok Singh (a dismissed UP Police constable), Amit Singh, Vishal Singh and some others apart from godowns, offices and shops of a number of manufacturers, distributors and stockists of various CBCS traders.

The federal probe agency recently booked a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) taking cognisance of about 30 UP Police FIRs that were registered to probe the misuse of CBCS, their illegal manufacturing, trade and transport including smuggling across the Bangladesh border.

CBCS are abused as an intoxicant and one of them, named Phensedyl, is smuggled to Bangladesh in large quantities through the International Border between the two countries. This category of cough syrup is a schedule H drug and can only be sold on a doctor's prescription.

ED officials said they have estimated that the total proceeds of crime (illicit money generated under the definition of PMLA) at about Rs 1,000 crore.

The officials, during the searches, recovered 46,891 CBCS bottles from a company office located in Transport Nagar area of Lucknow apart from computer devices and documents from all the locations.

ED staff, as per officials, found dilapidated buildings and fake addresses at multiple places as they reached to raid the premises of those companies which are alleged to be doing "illegal" trade of CBCS worth crores of rupees.

Shubham Jaiswal is understood to have fled to Dubai while his father Bhola Prasad Jaiswal was arrested by the UP Police recently from the Kolkata international airport while he was reportedly trying to flee abroad.

A total of 32 persons have been taken into custody by the state police till now which has also constituted a SIT to probe the case, the officials said.

UP Director General of Police (DGP) Rajiv Krishna had told reporters early this week that the investigation so far had exposed a network of major "super stockists" allegedly involved in illegal diversion of the "highly regulated" CBCS. PTI NES DV DV