By Mata Press Service

The boss of an Indian software firm is cooling his heels in jail as Indian investigators unravel a complex international internet prescription drug operation that was feeding addicts in Canada and the U.S.

Sanjay Kedia, the CEO of the Calcutta-based Xponse IT Services was arrested earlier this month. Indian police allege that Kedia was using his call centre to supply foreign clients with psychotropic drugs through online transactions. The operation was “simple and brilliant” said India’s Narcotics Control Bureau director Sandeep Mittal. “Addicts to psychotropic drugs in the US and Canada booked their drugs online and paid through credit cards,”said Mittal.

Psychotropic drugs are a class of drugs that affect the mind, emotions, and behaviour. Some legal drugs like lithium, for depression, are psychotropic. Many illicit drugs, like cocaine, are also psychotropic. They are also called psychodynamic drugs.

This is how the syndicate allegedly worked. First it built a database of North American doctors, their registration numbers and the drugs they prescribed. Then it floated 29 online pharmacies.

After that, spam emails did the trick. Addicts took the cue, read the mail, logged on to the website the mail guided them to and phoned the toll-free number advertised there. The clients were assured that they need not worry about the prescription, that they would receive the drug they wanted in bulk. They paid with their cards more than the cost price.

The operators pulled out a prescription from their database (complete with doctor’s name, etc), and sent it online to a pharmacy in the client’s neighbourhood in Canada or the U.S. and paid for the drugs to be delivered.

Mittal said the company also took orders through toll-free international numbers, although Internet users from Asian countries were barred from viewing the site through firewalls to elude security agencies.

Kedia is alleged to be a kingpin of the racket along with a US-based associate, Steven Mahana, who owns a 49% stake in Xponse. Police allege the duo is also linked to a Colombian drug cartel.

Kedia, a 31-year-old 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 US$10 million,” said Mittal, according to Indian news reports.

“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.

He said there are likely to be many other operatives and dimensions involved in this highly sophisticated racket.

Kedia operated from his Calcutta-area Salt Lake, Sector-V office, and sleuths say his arrest exposes a thriving, multi-million dollar racket through BPOs. The company hosted about 29 illegal online pharmacies, officials said; and among the illegal sites were delivermedicine,com, travelpharmacy.com, truevalueprescription.com, phentermine.com, expressphentermine.com and stronghealthpharmacy.com.

According to officials, the sites served as front services and the backup was done through a website called lessrx.com. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (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, said Asia Times.

India’s inclusion in illegal Internet drug sales was first noticed in mid-2005 when the U.S. 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.

Kedia’s lawyer C.K. Jain was quoted as saying that both the arrest and the sealing of Kedia’s office were illegal. “He had nothing to do with the online trading of drugs outside India. He was falsely implicated.” He said, “Kedia developed softwares and websites for pharmacy companies outside India and if someone misused them, it is not my client’s fault. He started his business in Salt Lake through a proper channel and with valid documents.” The fate of more than 300 employees working at Kedia’s office is now uncertain. Kedia has been booked under three sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The minimum jail term is 10 years.