In a first, an Indian-origin man has been charged for hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) and price-gouging under the US” Defence Production Act (DPA) amid pandemic Coronavirus. The person identified Amardeep Singh hailing from New York has amassed critical personal protective equipment during a public health crisis and resold them at a huge mark-up.
He collected various PPEs like N-95 filtering facepiece respirators, face masks, surgical masks, face shields, gloves, coveralls and medical gowns as well as clinical-grade sanitising and disinfecting products and thermometers starting in March when the pandemic began hitting New York, the prosecution said. The court complaint said that he sold gloves at a mark-up of 1,328 per cent. He had received 40 shipments of disposable face masks weighing more than 1.6 tonnes, 14 shipments of disposable surgical gowns weighing more than 2.2 tonnes, six shipments of hand sanitiser weighing more than 1.8 tonnes and seven shipments of digital thermometers weighing about 150 kilogrammes, according to the complaint.
New York Attorney General Leitia James had also issued a cease and desist notice about selling hand sanitisers and other disinfecting products, at “unconscionably excessive prices”.
