In a major crackdown on the illegal cough syrup trade, the Enforcement Directorate, Lucknow zonal office, on Friday carried out searches at 25 locations across Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Gujarat, targeting premises linked to key accused Shubham Jaiswal and his associates.

The searches began around 7:30 am at locations connected to associates Alok Singh, Amit Singh, several cough syrup manufacturers accused of supplying codeine-based formulations for illegal trading.

Additionally, the residence and office of the Ranchi based Vishnu Aggarwal, a Chartered Accountant (CA), are being searched for alleged financial links supporting the illegal trade.

The operations spanned Lucknow, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Saharanpur, Ranchi and Ahmedabad.

The raid is linked with the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR).It was registered on the basis of more than 30 FIRs filed over the past two months across multiple Uttar Pradesh districts, including Lucknow, Varanasi, Sonbhadra, Saharanpur and Ghaziabad.

These cases relate to illegal stocking, transportation, trading and cross-border smuggling of codeine-based cough syrup.