Karachi: A joint team of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has busted an illegal drug manufacturing unit in Karachi’s Ahsanabad area, where high-dose tramadol tablets and capsules of 225mg and 250mg were being produced despite an official ban on the manufacture of such strengths in Pakistan, officials said on Wednesday.
Officials said Pakistan’s drug regulator had cancelled the registration of all tramadol products of 225mg and 250mg in recent years following repeated alerts from international agencies and reports from several African countries that illegally produced high-dose tramadol brands were being smuggled from Pakistan and flooding black markets abroad.
Under current regulations, only tramadol formulations of 50mg and 100mg are allowed to be manufactured and sold in the country for controlled medical use.
High-dose tramadol has emerged globally as a major public health and law enforcement concern, particularly in parts of West and North Africa and the Middle East, where it is widely abused as a cheap opioid substitute.
Medical experts warn that misuse of high-strength tramadol can cause addiction, respiratory depression, seizures and, in severe cases, death. International narcotics control bodies have repeatedly flagged the role of illicit manufacturing hubs in South Asia in feeding transnational smuggling networks.
A senior DRAP official told vitalsnews.com that the factory, located in a katchi abadi in the Ahsanabad area, was engaged in the illegal production of multiple brands of high-dose tramadol, including the notorious ‘Trama King’, a brand linked internationally with the abuse and trafficking of high-strength opioid painkillers.
The official said DRAP officials, accompanied by the FIA Anti-Corruption Circle, conducted the raid after receiving intelligence about clandestine manufacturing of banned formulations.
During the raid, officials seized huge quantities of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) used for manufacturing tramadol, along with finished tablets and capsules, packaging material, excipients and drug-making machinery. The official said the scale of production suggested the operation was geared towards mass supply for illegal markets rather than legitimate pharmaceutical distribution.
Following initial arrests at the factory, the joint team conducted a follow-up raid at another location identified by the suspects, where dozens of drums containing suspected tramadol API were recovered. Although the containers were labelled as melamine, officials said samples had been sent to laboratories for chemical analysis, adding that there was a strong suspicion the material was being used for the production of high-dose tramadol.
Officials in the Sindh health department expressed concern that despite repeated seizures of millions of illegal tablets and raw material worth billions of rupees over recent years, effective prosecution has remained elusive.
“Factories are being raided and stock is being seized, but the supply chains remain intact and those running these networks are rarely brought to justice,” a senior official said, warning that weak follow-up investigations were allowing the illegal drug trade to resurface under new fronts.
The FIA said further legal action would be initiated after completion of laboratory testing and regulatory assessments, while DRAP officials stressed that cracking down on high-dose tramadol manufacturing was critical not only to curb domestic drug abuse but also to protect Pakistan from being used as a source country for illicit opioid trafficking.
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