GLOBALIZATION
HITS A NEW HIGH Busted: The online narcotics
dealers By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - First it was
"phishing" to gather personal information to sell
for profit. Then the world discovered
that unscrupulous elements in India's famed
information technology industry were sweet-talking their
American clients into parting with millions of dollars from
their bank accounts or credit cards. Now, an
Indian software company and its American counterpart
are accused of peddling narcotics over the Internet to
addicts all over the world.
Sleuths of the
Indian Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) came down
hard early this week on Xponse Technologies, a
Kolkata-based
software development company
and its two associate call center companies and
arrested its founder and chief executive, Sanjay
Kedia, on the charge of dealing and selling drugs
over the Internet, primarily in the North American
market.
Kedia
was alleged to be a kingpin of an international Internet
drug trafficking racket along with a
US-based associate, Steven Mahana, who owns a 49% stake
in Xponse. Kedia and Mahana, the bureau alleges,
were involved in trafficking psychotropic
substances, mainly phentermine, and are said to be also
linked to a Colombian drug cartel.
Kedia, 31, an
engineering-college graduate from one of the
country's prestigious Institutes of Technology, is
alleged to have been running the racket for the
past two years and earning about US$500,000 a
month from his thousands of customers, mainly in
the US, Canada and Sweden.
"We have come
to know that Kedia had opened an account with a
Luxembourg bank in a fictitious name and deposited
$10 million," said Sandeep Mittal, zonal director
of the NCB. Besides, thousands of dollars were
also found stashed in various local banks.
"The setup was ingenious and goes to prove
that only a sharp mind of an educated person could
carry it off," said Mittal. It appears that the operators of
the scheme not only understood the minds of the addicts,
but also had done their homework.
According to a bureau
statement, Kedia built a database of doctors
in the US along with their registration numbers
and the drugs they prescribed. Then he allegedly
floated 29 online pharmacies (like deliveredmedicine.com,
truevaluepharmacy.com,
deliveredphentermine.com,
truevalueprescription.com, expressphentermine.com,
stronghealthpharmacy.com) and sent out the names
via mass emails.
The
rest was easy. As addicts took the cue and logged
on to the websites, they were led to Kedia's
call centers with a toll-free phone number. They
were assured of complete privacy and quantity in bulk.
The call center would receive the payment - much
more than the cost of the drug - and fill out
a prescription from the database, complete with a
doctor's forged signature, his registration number
and the client's details such as name, address, body weight
and blood pressure.
This prescription and
the money were then forwarded online to a pharmacy
in the addict's neighborhood for collection. The
difference between the actual prices of the
medicine was retained by the call center. "The
whole process was carried out with such precision
that even the pharmacies probably did not know
that a racket was involved," said bureau
officials.
Kedia's lawyer
has denied his companies' involvement. "Xponse and
his associate companies were just involved in
developing the software for the websites for a US-based
firm with interests in pharmaceuticals," said the
lawyer, adding, "If that firm misused the
software, Xponse and Kedia can't be held
responsible."
But
bureau officials said that the US-based firms were a
"shadow entity" of Xponse, which was unearthed first by
the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and brought
to the notice of the Indian authorities.
The DEA started surveillance about a
year ago following reports of some pharmacies in the
US, Canada and Sweden supplying medicines regulated
under the psychotropic drugs rules, in bulk
quantities to buyers even outside these countries.
It then traced these alleged dealings to the
Kedia-owned companies Xponse Technologies, Xponse
IT Services and Xponse Inc.
Although this
is the first case of an established Indian IT
company's alleged involvement in the illegal drug
trade, it is not the first time that India has
been featured in illegal sales of pharmaceutical
products over the Internet.
According to a
United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization report, deregulated and
privatized markets have allowed the drug industry
to spread its activities worldwide, opening new
trafficking routes and production zones. Countries
like India that are opening up their economies
to global forces fast are also increasingly
contributing to the globalization of the illegal
drug trade.
In fact, the DEA says India's
inclusion in illegal Internet drug sales was first
noticed in mid-2005 when the Organized Crime Drug
Enforcement Task Force investigation under
"Operation Cyber Chase", cracked down on 20 rogue
Internet pharmacies for conducting illegal sales
of pharmaceutical products over the Internet.
These companies were identified as being based in
the US, Europe, the Caribbean and in Asia,
including in Indian cities such as Delhi, Agra and
Mumbai.
According to the DEA, the Internet
has been an open medicine cabinet for too long
with cyber drug dealers illegally doling out a
vast array of narcotics, amphetamines and
steroids. These e-traffickers target young people
and those suffering from addiction and attempt to
subvert the medical prescription system.
Even as the DEA continues to warn
that illegal pharmaceuticals pose a great risk
to the health and welfare of
American buyers because these drugs are manufactured
overseas in unregulated facilities, many online
sellers continue to thrive on just "cheap
sourcing". Take the instance of Value
Pharmaceuticals, an online pharmacy that promises
"discount pharmaceutical purchases conveniently
and confidentially online" and offers "reliable
delivery globally".
This
seller, which provides a "1-800"
(toll-free in North America) number and does not reveal
its operation base, says that prices of medicines
vary significantly from country to country.
It researches these price differences and
then, through its online overseas pharmacies, gives
the buyer the ability to access these
lower-priced markets and buy discounted brand-name drugs and
generic drugs.
The seller also claims that
brand-name products are sourced from
well-developed Western countries with highly
regarded drug regulatory systems as well as
countries that have low-priced pharmaceutical
markets.
"Most of the generic products available
from Value Pharmaceuticals are sourced from
Western European countries. A few of the generic
products are sourced from approved pharmaceutical
manufacturers from India and these are identified
during the ordering process," it says.
Indrajit Basu is a Kolkata-based
journalist.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times
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