Lucknow Zonal Office started simultaneous raids at 25 locations at around 7:30 am on Friday (12 December 2025) in a major case of illegal cough syrup trading. These locations belong to people associated with the main accused Shubham Jaiswal – Alok Singh, Amit Singh and those manufacturers who fraudulently made the supply of cough syrup available for illegal business. Apart from this, action is also being taken at the locations of Chartered Accountant (CA) Vishnu Aggarwal.
Raids are going on in Lucknow, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Ranchi (Jharkhand) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat). According to officials, the ECIR has been registered on the basis of more than 30 FIRs registered in different districts of Uttar Pradesh in the last two months in Lucknow, Varanasi, Sonbhadra, Saharanpur and Ghaziabad. These FIRs relate to illegal stocking, transportation, trading and cross-border supply of codeine-based cough syrup. Investigation has so far revealed that illegal money (POC) worth more than Rs 1000 crore is involved in this entire racket.
Main accused absconding
The main accused in this case, Shubham Jaiswal is still absconding and it is believed that he is hiding in Dubai. Meanwhile, his father Bhola Prasad has been arrested. Uttar Pradesh Police has so far arrested 32 people. During the raid, many fake addresses and fake firms were also found, on which this illegal business was being run and in whose name illegal purchase and sale of cough syrup was being done. Investigating agencies say that raids will continue and the entire network will be exposed.
Why is cough syrup harmful?
There are many cough syrups in which opioids like codeine are added. According to law, these medicines should be sold only on doctor’s prescription, but the reality is that these syrups are misused on a large scale.
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