Pharma firm employee arrested for running clandestine recreational drug manufacturing lab

A “highly qualified professional” with a postgraduate degree in organic chemistry and working in the research and development department of an “established” pharmaceutical company has been arrested, it said.

The man had hired the premises of a pharmaceutical company to run the “illegal” manufacturing facility. Investigation is in progress to disrupt the entire ecosystem involved in drug trafficking, the NCB said.

According to PTI, the agency said the operation was a result of three months of “intensive” efforts to identify the source of alprazolam that began with the seizure of 6kg of the drug by the NCB.

The seizure was made in September at the Shadnagar Toll Plaza on the outskirts of Hyderabad with the arrest of an 85-year-old person.

The NCB said this was the eighth bust this year of a clandestine drugs-making lab in the country. It had earlier unearthed similar facilities in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and Noida (Uttar Pradesh).