Ahmedabad rural police on Monday arrested four persons from Ahmedabad and Mumbai, including a former plasma collection executive, for allegedly stealing blood plasma from pharmaceutical consignments and replacing it with inferior or unusable units before delivery, police said.
“Genuine plasma units were removed and replaced with inferior or unusable plasma while maintaining identical quantities and resealing the packages to avoid detection,” Om Prakash Jat, superintendent of police (Ahmedabad Rural) said.
According to police the accused diverted around 114 litres of plasma and sold it at ₹5,000 per litre. The racket operated across Maharashtra and Gujarat, with plasma sourced from a blood bank in Washim, Maharashtra, and consignments diverted and tampered with near Ahmedabad, police said.
During the probe, 1,140 plasma units, a deep freezer, chemical bottles, a sealing machine and a vehicle were seized, with the total value estimated at ₹12.06 lakh.
A case was registered at Changodar police station and was later transferred to the Ahmedabad Rural Special Operations Group due to its interstate ramifications.
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Of the four arrested, the prime accused Dinesh Umabhai Chaudhary, worked as a plasma collection executive with pharmaceutical firms and had knowledge of blood bank operations, plasma collection, transport and storage systems.
The other accused are Mohan Dajibha Gaikwad, a blood bank operator from Washim, and drivers Rafik Salambhai Khalifa and Jitendrabhai Baldevbhai Solanki.
According to investigators, Chaudhary built contacts with blood banks in Maharashtra during his earlier employment and recruited drivers transporting plasma consignments into the network.
Vehicles carrying plasma were diverted before reaching pharmaceutical companies to a location in Moriya near Ahmedabad to replace high-quality plasma with inferior or unusable plasma of identical quantity, said Jat.
Around 500 units of substandard plasma were procured from the Washim blood bank to facilitate the replacement, police said.
Blood plasma is used to manufacture products such as albumin, immunoglobulins and clotting factors, and any diversion or tampering can compromise the safety of these medicines and affect patients dependent on them.
Investigators said plasma accounts for about 55% of blood volume and must be maintained under a strict cold chain of minus 18° Celsius to minus 30° Celsius to retain quality and safety. Tampering with plasma also disrupts donor identification and traceability systems within the supply chain, police said.
