With Rs 400 crore assets, drug kingpin planned to set up manufacturing unit

Sourc:K Praveen Kumar, TNN, Apr 2, 2010, 04.32am IST



CHENNAI: The interrogators of Meenakshi Sundaram have their hands full as the suspected kingpin of the spurious drug scam has started singing in police custody. What emerges is a sordid tale of his rise from a young pharma salesman earning a few thousand rupees in 1994 to a racketeer with assets running into hundreds of crores.

Dealing in expired and substandard drugs, Sundaram couldn’t care less for the health of millions, who may have unwittingly popped such pills.

Ten days after the drugs control director named him in a complaint to the Kodungaiyur police, Sundaram, 45, surrendered at the VIII metropolitan magistrate court on March 26 after failing to get anticipatory bail. The XIII metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday gave custody of Sundaram to the cops for six days.

Police sources said pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, connecting Sundaram to the other accused in the scam, which has exposed the manner in which expired and substandard drugs find their way from dumping yards and spurious manufacturing units to shops across the state.

According to investigators, the scam fetched Sundaram huge returns over the past decade. He paid income tax of Rs 45 lakh last year, has an overdraft account of Rs 31 crore and owns a Rs 30-lakh Mercedes Benz.

Sundaram had a balance of more than Rs 30 crore in eight bank accounts and movable and immovable assets worth over Rs 400 crores, including three palatial houses in the city, investigators said. He was even planning to set up a drug manufacturing unit.