The Navi Mumbai Police have in a span of one week arrested eight people for allegedly selling Remdesivir injections in black market and cheating people on the pretext of selling the vials.
On Monday, the Panvel City police arrested three men for allegedly cheating a Pune resident of ₹88,000 by promising four vials. One of the accused, Akash Mhatre, had given the contact number of his accomplice identified as Saurabh Vonkar to the complainant who was in search of the injection.
The complainant contacted Mr. Vonkar who told him that he had four vials and would sell them for ₹88,000 which the former would have to hand over to his friend Aniket Tandel. The complainant gave the money to Mr. Tandel near Panvel railway station.
“After receiving the money, Mr. Vonkar called the complainant and said the vials were seized in a police raid and he should not ask the money back or else he would reveal his name to the police. The complainant then approached us following which we arrested the trio,” senior police inspector Ajay Landge from Panvel City police station said.
On the same day, the Unit II of the Navi Mumbai Crime Branch arrested Rahul Devrao Kande (38), a lab technician, with three vials of the injection. The accused was nabbed by senior police inspector Giridhar Gore and his team from Khanda colony where the accused had come to sell the vials at ₹35,000 each.
The APMC police on April 23 arrested a woman from Sector 26, Vashi, with two injections. “As per the information we received, we laid a trap at Sector 26 and arrested the woman and found two injections which she had come to sell for ₹22,000. In further search, we found two more vials in her possession,” police inspector (crime) Basit Ali Sayyed from APMC police station said.
On the same day, the Koparkhairane police arrested Sameer Ganpat Chandorkar from Sector 15 with four vials of Remdesivir which he had come for selling at an excessive rate.
Following his arrest, his accomplices Vandana Umesh Jadhav and Bhivsan alias Vinod Vikram Patil were also arrested from Dombivali.
