In August 2026, Delhi police busted a racket of fake cancer medicine. Police have traced nearly 100 cancer patients who allegedly brought medicines diverted from hospitals and other legitimate sources.
The police have identified three chemist shops and four hospitals in Haryana and Telangana as alleged sources of the diverted medicines.
According to the reports, in August, Delhi police were able to recover 558 filled anti-cancer vials, six empty vials and medicines worth approximately Rs. 9 crore.
17 people were arrested in the racket of fake cancer medicine.
The medicines that were recovered included Darzalex, Imfinzi, Erbitux, Opdyta, Gazyva, Bavencio, Adcetris, and Keytruda. All these medicines are used for cancer treatment and immunotherapy and are each worth lakhs of rupees per dose. The people involved in the racket had supply links in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
On June 22, 2026, the investigation started after police received information about a bunch of people who were procuring, storing and selling counterfeit and illegally diverted anti-cancer drugs.
On 11 July, seven teams conducted raids in association with the drug department to find these people from various locations.
According to the investigators, the vials that were meant for other patients were misappropriated and sold in the market for Rs 1 lakh- Rs 1.3 lakh per vial.
According to a report by ETV Bharat in a separate case, cancer treatment injections originally meant to be sold for free to patients of a Rajasthan government hospital were diverted and found in the grey markets of Delhi. The same medicines were sold at a much higher price. Around 22 vials were confiscated, which were being sold for Rs 1 lakh.
According to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 10 medical products in low- or middle-income countries is substandard or falsified. Anti-Cancer medicines, which are expensive and distributed through a complicated supply chain, are more prone to such scams.
According to the reports, cancer medicines are attractive to such crimes because of their high price, unavailability in many markets and the desperation of patients who are battling through an advanced stage of the disease.
Police have spoken to several family members and patients who had bought the illegally diverted medicines, but according to the police, none of these people was aware that the medicines were originally meant for other patients or sold through sellers who were part of a corrupt racket chain.
The police are doing an extensive investigation to find out the exact chain of events that went through before the medicines reached the patients. To understand the pattern, police are tracing back hospital records, chemist shops and patient details.
Investigations are ongoing to establish where each vial came from and who the people involved were in diverting it and selling it to another patient. Most of the patients who had bought the medicines are from Haryana.
According to the reports, three chemist shops and four private hospitals in Haryana and Telangana have been identified as the alleged sources of the misappropriated medications.
A source told TOI, "Most of the patients for whom the vials were legitimately issued were also from Haryana, but the medicines were allegedly misappropriated and sold to others. Some of these patients have been examined by police.”
Investigators are trying to find whether the patients who missed their doses because of the diversion of medicines had to face any health-related consequences.
To make their case stronger, police want to ask doctors at a top hospital how missing a treatment cycle affects a patient's health.
According to the data, around 14 lakh new cases of cancer are diagnosed in India every day, which makes for an immense demand in the market for anti-cancer drugs.
Only a fraction of this population has health insurance that can cover the high costs of cancer treatment and medications. So people who are suffering from cancer in the country try to find alternative ways to source the medicines, and that is when the corrupted supply chains come into play.
Ultimately, India's counterfeit oncology drug crisis is not just a regulatory failure; it is a healthcare financing failure.
(Rh/ARC)
