Kolkata: The West Bengal Directorate of Drug Control conducted searches at two medicine warehouses on Saturday and seized spurious medicines.
The searches, sources said, are part of the ongoing probe against the spurious drug supplier in Howrah.
According to sources, officials seized spurious drugs worth Rs 34 lakh from the two warehouses in Titagarh.
Earlier, in Feb this year, the directorate busted a drug racket in Howrah and seized spurious drugs worth Rs 17 lakh. The officials believe that spurious medicines worth Rs 1 crore are already in circulation in the open market.
Officials also found that the QR Code on the rear side of the medicine strips was copied.
The QR Code was introduced for nearly 300 medicines since 2023 to help consumers avoid counterfeit and substandard drugs.
Since then, a series of raids were conducted by the directorate. Earlier this week, the directorate conducted searches at a nursing home in north Kolkata and seized spurious medicines.
On Saturday, acting on a tip-off, the WBDDC officials raided the two warehouses of a wholesaler and found huge quantities of fake medicines there.
Sources in the directorate said that the accused used to bring the fake medicines from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh after forging the batch number of medicines and supplying them to retailers.