Dublin man fined €22,000 for selling fake Viagra in his shop

A Dublin man faces a huge €22,000 fine (roughly £18,216) after submitting a guilty plea to stocking a counterfeit version of prescription-only erectile dysfunction medication Viagra, in addition to a variety other medicines at his bargains shop.

The 55-year-old from Woodstown Park, Knocklyon, pleaded guilty to 11 offences in breach of the Irish Medicines Board Act, after investigators discovered the products at his business, Breathnach’s Bargains, at St Dominic’s Shopping Centre, Tallaght.

The Dublin native was prosecuted after two separate inspections at the premises by an officer from the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), who swooped on the shop on September 28th, 2011 and again on April 11th, 2012.

Brenda Kirby, an enforcement officer with the IMB, informed Judge John O’Neill at Dublin District Court that she visited the shop and spoke to the man’s 26-year-old son after receiving a tip-off from customs officers.

Ms Kirby subsequently spotted a “large number of unauthorised medicinal products”. The 26-year-old male promptly spoke to his father on the telephone and he informed Ms Kirby the shop would promptly stop selling the products.

As many of the patients of Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy are fully aware, Ms Kirby stressed that the Viagra brand is produced only by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and anything bearing this name that is not produced by Pfizer, is counterfeit. After Pfizer received a sample of a product seized at the shop, they unsurprisingly confirmed both the drug and its labelling was fake.

A whole host of medications are sent to Pfizer thousands of times per week by authorities and it only takes a few days to find out how genuine they are. Fake drugs can comprise of numerous disgusting and lethal ingredients such as brick dust, chalk, paint and pesticides.

Then on April 11, 2012, Ms Kirby went back to the shop and again found medicinal products on sale. The 55-year-old owner admitted to possessing Kamagra tablets – which are not licensed for sale in Ireland or the United Kingdom -  and counterfeit Viagra tablets.

He also confessed to selling other prescription items, these being Max Strength Decongestant Tablets and Vicks Sinex Decongestant Capsules.  Calpol in 100ml and 140ml bottles, Diarrhoea Relief Capsules and Beechams All in One Tablets were also being sold at the premises.

Judge O’Neill convicted the man and handed down fines totalling €22,000 to be paid within four months or a 21 day prison sentence will be enforced. His son pleaded guilty to three charges relating to keeping Max Strength Decongestant Tablets and Vicks Sinex Decongestant Capsules in stock for supply. He must donate €1,000 (roughly £826) to charity by May 27 to receive the benefit of the Probation Act, otherwise he will be convicted and fined a larger amount.

Illegal websites posing as pharmacies still swarm the search engines

Buying from the internet can be risky, especially when it comes to your health. Those with health problems such as erectile dysfunction should only ever receive their medication from a registered pharmacy, clearly displaying the green cross logo and pharmacy number – which can be verified – on the front page of their website, as follows:



So for example, you have erectile dysfunction, you should have already have had, or about to initiate check-ups with your own doctor for any other underlying reasons for erectile dysfunction, and are about to search for a genuine, registered pharmacy on the internet. This is where you need to beware; there are thousands of illegal websites posing as pharmacies, who do not care about your health, who are plaguing search engine results and easily accessible, high up the rankings.

Often even within the first few pages especially of any given search engine, there are countless examples, and it is catastrophic. It is disastrous for patients, for genuine online pharmacies, and gives the entire e-commerce industry an unfairly bad reputation. But the good news is Medical Specialists Pharmacy are reporting these malicious websites to authorities and to the search engines themselves.
Here are the summarised important factors that can help you spot a rogue online pharmacy/illegal website.

. An unnecessary/suspicious internet browser redirect.
. No requirement of a doctors’ consultation for prescription medication.
. Long delivery times, sometimes up to several weeks. This is due to the drug being imported from a foreign country before it gets to you.
. The price of the medication is a lot cheaper than what would be expected, sometimes by as much as 70%. If a price is too good to be true, it’s probably because it is.
. ‘Bonus’ or ‘free pills’. Seriously, just stop and think what doctor would throw in free pills for you requesting a higher amount of something. Frankly, it is absurd and an obvious sign of an illegal pharmacy.
. The website does not list any contact details, e.g. a telephone and fax number, email address, company address or details of its pharmacists, doctors, etc.
. A registered Pharmacy such as Medical Specialists Pharmacy will have the GPhC green cross logo together with its Pharmacy number. This number can be checked to see if it does actually exist.
. The company registration and VAT number should both be clearly stated on the website. Both of these are a legal requirement.
. A non-UK currency and/or a ‘head office’ that is based overseas.

Now when you think of searching for products of services, the chances are almost all of us will turn to Google. Simply put, amongst search engine users, Google blows all of its competitors out of the water. It is the most popular search engine by a staggering distance, with an estimated 83% of search engine users found to prefer Google in 2012, a remarkable percentage whatever way you look at it.
Those behind the previously mentioned illegal websites are fully aware of what search engines are popular, and will target them with a vengeance. It is a problem for both patients and legitimate fully-registered pharmacies such as Medical Specialists, Chemist Direct, and it is a problem that needs dealing with NOW.

Worryingly, a lot of illegal websites are posing as pharmacies, selling counterfeit drugs. They have no regulation and their drugs may have none of the active ingredient at all.  These websites are still populating user’s search results and more vigilance needs to be shown by internet users all around the globe to spot them and avoid at all costs. The cost could even be your health or worse, your life. Safety is of no concern to these criminals, they instead offer counterfeit drugs, or ‘generic’ versions of medications that should not have generics.

Even the pill quantities should make anyone with common sense alert to authenticity. Erectile dysfunction medications are usually packaged within a box of four tablets and it doesn’t take a lot to realise you are not dealing with a genuine pharmacy when 120 mg x 10 ‘generic Viagra’ pills are being sold for just £17.76. Quantity issue aside, 100 mg is the highest dose of Viagra and this alone should raise serious alarm bells. Those cheap ‘generic’ Viagra tablets could actually contain very little sildenafil (Viagra’s active ingredient), none of it at all, or much more than listed on the website – highly dangerous to those with certain health problems.

Other common traits for the illegal websites is suspiciously low prices, as touched upon with the previous example, as well as absolutely no prescription or online doctors’ consultation required when ordering. All genuine UK online pharmacies should have GMC-registered doctors under their wing to assess if particular patients are medically suitable for certain medications.

However, it does not stop there. Say it is Viagra you want to treat your erectile dysfunction, even before the website has loaded, take notice of your browser address bar. There is a good possibility a seemingly random website address of ‘xyz.com/index.php?12345’ showing on the search results will suddenly change to ‘cheapgenericdrugs4u-order-viagra-online’, or something else that appears suspect. Ask yourself, why would any legitimate online pharmacy go to the trouble of implementing a redirect in your internet browser? Basically, they wouldn’t…Close the website immediately before it has infected your computer with malware; malicious software that can disrupt or damage your computer’s operation and even collect sensitive information for a third party’s benefit.

The shocking truth about counterfeit drugs is laid bare

After speaking with many of the thousands of patients who choose Medical Specialists as their pharmacy, we are only too aware of the concerns, worries and hesitations that some people have when it comes to dealing with online pharmacies. We are part of a minority in that we are a fully registered, genuine pharmacy that prescribe genuine branded medication – No cheap and potentially fatal knock-offs like many online ‘pharmacies’!

And now an investigation carried out by WKYC’s Channel 3 News in America has exposed more of the murky, dangerous world of counterfeit drugs after shocking estimates show that around $75 billion worth of counterfeit drugs could have been obtained last year unknowingly.

Some may remember the widely reported 2012 case of fake cancer drug Avastin being circulated in the supply chain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had to alert medical practices in the U.S. that were suspected to have purchased and used the fakes. Avastin is an injectable medicine that is used to treat cancers of the brain, colon, kidney and lung. It is usually administered to patients in clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices. The fake Avastin worryingly did not contain the medicine’s active ingredient, bevacizumab, resulting in patients not receiving much needed treatment.

The new investigation comprised of the purchasing of medications online that the investigators thought looked credible enough. The websites were found by searching ‘online pharmacy’ into Google. Then, they decided to try and obtain two incredible popular medications – erectile dysfunction treatment Viagra, and the ‘bad’ cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor.

The websites offered a variety of medications; some being brand-name prescription medications, whilst others were cheaper generic alternatives. Proudly displayed on the websites were images of the American and Canadian flags, and pictures of what appeared to be doctors and pharmacists…So far so good.
However, next is where suspicions started to arise. ‘Female Viagra’ and ‘Viagra super active’ were just two of drugs being offered on some of the websites. Viagra has not been given approval to be used by women. Also, although the UK patent on Viagra expired earlier this year, meaning certain pharmaceutical companies can produce medications containing Sildenafil (Viagra’s active ingredient), Americans will have to patiently bide their time until 2020 for a generic alternative to hit their shores.
Therefore, ‘Viagra super active’ should ring alarm bells immediately! It is either Pfizer-made Viagra, or none at all! In a move that should also set alarm bells off, two websites shockingly offered free samples of prescription-only medications with orders, such as another erectile dysfunction treatment, Cialis. Obviously there are questions within a doctor’s consultation that need to be asked to patients before any prescription item is approved and dispensed to the patient.

After ordering Viagra and Lipitor from three websites, it was a few later before anything arrived. Packages then turned up from exotic locations like China, India and Pakistan, not America or Canada. Customs forms on the packages certainly raised eyebrows. One said the package contained ‘plastic beads’, another listed ‘cards’ and a third said ‘harmless medicine’.

The drugs seemed to be genuine upon a quick glance. However, one not-so-minor problem… received was a generic Lipitor – not what the investigators had paid for. In another order, only half of the Viagra tablets had arrived that had been ordered and paid for.

Next, the issue was; were the pills actually real? Samples of the drugs were then sent off to Pfizer’s lab in Groton, Conn., for testing.

Brian Donnelly is director of investigations for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. He is a qualified pharmacist, with 22 years of FBI work under his belt. Donnelly explained some shocking things about how the tablets were most likely produced.

“The active ingredient in the chemical could be in one part of China. The person who makes the tablets could be in another part of China, and then the person who packages it could be a third person,” Donnelly says.

Donnelly explains only one thing (besides big profit) is of importance to the counterfeiter. “It’s not whether the medication works or not. It’s whether or not it looks like the product. They may use floor wax on it to give it a shine. They may use automobile paint to give it colour. They’ve used ink cartridges for colour. We’ve seen boric acid used as a dilutent to give the tablet its size and shape. One of the favourite things for making the tablets is sheet-rock.”

Donnelly’s team works together with local law enforcement to stop dozens of counterfeit operations each year they bust the dirty labs which are the polar opposite of the hygiene, sterile environments where the genuine article is produced.

“You have no idea how that drug’s been manufactured. You have no idea how it’s been stored,” Donnelly says.

In many cases, it is near impossible to distinguish a fake medication from its real counterpart, so agents use a device known as a TruScan. The device blasts a laser which analyses the drug’s chemical composition to determine authenticity.

“As you can see, it failed. So this is counterfeit. It’s counterfeit,” Donnelly says after scanning one of the Viagra pills.

However, not only was the pill fake, it gets worse. In one batch of counterfeits, the anti-inflammatory medication diclofenac was discovered to be mixed in, for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

“When you get something that’s contaminated with another drug, you have the potential for getting someone sick,” Donnelly warns.

Swiss Professor creates a basic machine to detect fake drugs

Associate professor Serge Rudaz of Geneva University’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Switzerland may have helped to ease the worldwide problem of dangerous counterfeit drugs after developing an inexpensive machine that can identify diminished or fake medicines.

Keen readers of the Medical Specialists news area will already be aware of the huge risks associated with consuming a counterfeited drug and it is an issue we feel passionate about. Forbes estimated that the global sales of counterfeit drugs hit the $200 billion mark in late 2012, so clearly there is only one incentive for the criminals involved – to make money. This is regardless of the health of those who ingest the cheaply-produced drugs that can be comprised of a whole range of lethal ingredients such as paint, chalk, printer ink, brick dust and even arsenic.

Demonstrating how the problem has spread worldwide, in 2012 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized a batch of the prescription-only cancer medicine Avastin which turned out to be fakes and had been already been dispersed across America – despite its relatively protected domestic drug supply chain. It was discovered that the phony Avastin had been shipped to the U.S. from the United Kingdom.

According to the World Health Organization, around 10% of medicines circulating in the world are fakes, with even much higher figures for certain African countries  – areas where drugs such as antibiotics, analgesics, steroids, malaria pills, or antihistamines are in such high demand and sometimes needed to prevent death. In more developed nations it is usual for the most copied drugs to be patented ones such as Viagra.

Therefore Professor Rudaz has decided to fight the huge problem of counterfeit drugs and has manufactured a relatively cheap machine for labs to utilise to pick out the fakes. The machine merely costs $10,000 (£6,595.44) – around a tenth of what other commercial equipment costs. Because of this cost factor, Rudaz and his organisation offer the technology free-of-charge and have so far donated to labs in Senegal, Mali, Cambodia, and D.R. Congo, with machines set to go to Burkina Faso, Madagascar, and Rwanda in the near future.

The machine uses a method called capillary electrophoresis – a century-old technique never previously exercised in counterfeit drug detection. Technicians simply fill a thin tube with water and tiny measure of solvent, administer a high voltage and then diluted drug moves underneath the electric field. The validity is ascertained by how fast it travels.

Rudaz asked manufacturers if they wanted to assist in developing the design but they all replied they couldn’t envisage it having a market. He says: “Because the machine uses very little solvent, it is like a low-cost printer where the ink is also low cost. You have no business.”

Rudaz acknowledges that there is a huge battle to beat the counterfeiters with ‘drug mafias’ involved in the smuggling of drugs, and that it would be almost impossible to completely eradicate it. He says: “You won’t solve counterfeits completely. We detect some drugs, but the problem remains. The problem of counterfeits is not only a problem of analytics. It is also a problem of economics and society which is too big for me.”

You do not need to worry about dangerous fakes when dealing with Medical Specialists Pharmacy. Established in 1994 and becoming the UK’s first legal online clinic in 2001, we are fully registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and also a member of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA). Our team of Doctors are registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) and our Pharmacists are registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB).

£117 million of fake drugs are seized during police raids

A country-wide operation in China that involved approximately 18,000 police officers has culminated in the arrest of almost 2,000 people and the seizing of an incredible 1.16bn Yuan ($182m; £117m) of fake medicines in just the past month alone. The arrests were made in an attempt to clean up a country which is widely known for its high volume of bogus products, including a very prosperous nationwide counterfeit drugs market.

As well as millions of dollars’ worth of fake drugs being seized, the police raids in China resulted in the destruction of about 1,100 production facilities according to the Chinese public security minister who spoke yesterday, and confirmed that the arrests actually occurred last month.

The released statement said that some of the counterfeit drugs officials had seized included convincing look-a-likes that were apparently to treat a wide range of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, skin problems, cancer and rabies. In an attempt to pass the dangerous drugs off as ‘genuine’, the crafty criminals went to extreme measures such as paying to advertise the goods on the internet, newspapers and on television. It has been reported that some of the problems the fakes had caused included serious issues such as heart failure, liver damage and kidney damage.

China is one of the globe’s biggest producers of fake medicines and authorities now need to devise new ways to stop the problem for good. Medical Specialists Pharmacy are strong campaigners for the introduction of much tougher legislation for anybody found guilty of dealing with counterfeit medicines. After all, it is people’s lives at stake when ingesting potentially toxic chemicals that have been poorly produced in a dirty, unhygienic warehouse.

For instance, back in 2008 Chinese drug makers used contaminated ingredients to produce the blood thinning medication ‘Heparin’, resulting in the tragic death of 80 people and many hundreds more in the US had allergic reactions due to the harmful batch. This happened as worryingly some of the goods had been exported overseas. Indeed, from the statement released yesterday, it was uncertain if last month’s apprehended haul were actually meant for Chinese use or distribution to overseas countries.

The ministry are understandably pleased with the latest arrests, with there now being fewer products flooding the market and putting patients lives at risk. However, they have urged for some caution and said, “The crime of making drugs is still far from eradicated, and criminals are coming up with new schemes, becoming craftier and better able to deceive it.” They have further advised everybody to only purchase and obtain their medications from reputable pharmacies and hospitals. Some important things to be aware of, especially when browsing through different websites online, include:

. Long delivery times, sometimes up to several weeks. This is due to the drug being imported from a foreign country before it gets to you.
 . For erectile dysfunction medication, phony website could state ‘generic Viagra’ or ‘generic sildenafil citrate’. There is no such thing as generic Viagra!
. The price of the medication is a lot cheaper than usual, sometimes by as much as 70%.
. The website does not list any contact details, e.g. a telephone and fax number, company address, pharmacists, doctors, etc.
. A registered Pharmacy such as Medical Specialists Pharmacy will have the GPhC green cross logo together with its Pharmacy number. This number can be checked to see if it does actually exist.
. The company registration and VAT number should both be clearly stated on the website. Both of these are a legal requirement.

The War on fake Erectile Dysfunction drugs continues as more pills are seized

The global crackdown on counterfeit drugs has continued this week after five men were arrested in South Africa on Tuesday. KwaZulu-Natal police officers confirmed the news on Wednesday and stated that the men were possessing counterfeit Viagra with an approximate value of R800,000 (about £61,830). Colonel Jay Naicker, from the KwaZulu-Natal police force, said the arrests were carried out after police had undergone thorough investigations about the sales of illegal Viagra copies such as Kamagra, Zerenga, Femalegra and Vigora. All five men were confirmed to be aged between 23 and 35 and are will be scheduled for court dates.

The men can expect heavy sentences to be handed down to them, as legal systems all over the world look to seriously clamp down on the dealings of counterfeit medicines. Back in May, Medical Specialists Pharmacy reported how Simon Hickman of Greater Manchester, was being forced to repay a staggering £14.4 million pounds made from selling unlicensed erectile dysfunction medication over the internet, and may face a possible 10 years in prison. Some of the signs to look out for when you happen to click onto an illegally ran ‘online pharmacy’ like Hickman’s, we have covered in great depth here and here.

Medical Specialists Pharmacy are not the only group who are concerned about the ever-growing number of counterfeit medicines making their way onto the internet via illegal websites and the health risks that these drugs can pose. On Tuesday, a team of Urologists spoke at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, and further stressed just how dangerous counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills can be to the men who take them. They even claimed that 71.5% of those who are taking the illegal drugs, do not understand the potential side effects that they may incur from them.

The Urologists were from The Korean Society for Sexual Medicine and Andrology. They warned that fake impotence drugs can cause such problems like headaches, poor visibility, heart acceleration and in more extreme scenarios, arrhythmia could occur and actually endanger life. These fake pills are generally often easy to spot as they are sold incredibly cheaper than licensed medications to treat erectile dysfunction such as Pfizer’s Viagra and Eli Lily’s Cialis, and when purchased they do not require any kind of doctors consultation or prescription.

Sohn Hwan-Cheol, speaking at the conference, commented on the issue, “Counterfeits are difficult to distinguish because their colours and shapes are similar to the original drugs. Therefore, it is even harder to trace the origin of those drugs. But we believe many of them are produced in unhygienic and poor environments.” The doctors from the society have even launched a website to help men understand the differences between genuine and counterfeit erectile dysfunction drugs.

Thousands of fake Viagra and Cialis pills found in US bust

It’s apparently one of the biggest counterfeit busts in recent history. 

Authorities arrested 54-year-old Awni Zayyad. The Wilson, North Carolina resident is accused of trafficking over a thousand fake Viagra and Cialis pills.

“My first reaction when I hear that is, ‘If it’s fake, what is it?’ You have absolutely no clue what could be in these drugs,” says Charles Odell, with the Dilworth Centre for Chemical Dependency.

Odell says he often sees overdoes from fake drugs.

“When you're taking a drug off the street that is a bootleg or fake drug, then you're completely on your own without any assistance from a physician,” he adds.

Agent Delbert Richburg heads up Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Charlotte.

Richburg says the Charlotte area has seen its fair share of counterfeit items from health products, to consumer goods.

“These are some counterfeit Apple products, iPods, and again, you look at this iPod and it doesn't have the Apple, doesn't have the Apple mark on it,” Richburg explains.

Not surprisingly, the Internet has given rise to all sorts of counterfeit merchandise. ICE shut down over 82 websites on Cyber Monday.

“Unfortunately, you might spend $50 or $100 on a typical item that lasts for 30 days before it starts, the stitches come out and it starts to deteriorate,” he says.

Nationally, ICE confiscated over $200 Million in counterfeit items in 2009. $30 Million from health products alone. 

“At the very least it could cause serious health affects, worst it could possibly take your life,” Richburg says.

Officials say Thursday’s bust proves counterfeit items are not only low quality, but can also be risky to your health.

CHINESE COUNTERFEIT DRUG DISTRIBUTOR SENTENCED TO PRISON

A man from China was sentenced on Monday to 12 months and a day in prison for conspiring to distribute counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and trafficking in pharmaceuticals with false labeling and counterfeit trademarks. The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno, Southern District of Texas. The investigation was conducted by agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations.

Kum Leung Chow, aka Lawrence Chow, 59, pleaded guilty to the federal charges on June 28 and sentenced on Monday to 12 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt. Chow was arrested on Jan. 27 and has been in federal custody since that date and will remain in custody to serve out his sentence. Chow is subject to deportation after he completes his sentence.
The ICE HSI investigation began in January 2009 and revealed that Chow used a Hong Kong-based company named Kingdom International Enterprises LTD to obtain and distribute counterfeit Viagra and Cialis pharmaceutical drugs in the United States. Viagra and Cialis are prescription drugs that are FDA-approved and used to treat erectile dysfunction. They are registered trademarks on the principal register in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Viagra is manufactured and distributed exclusively by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, while Cialis is manufactured and distributed exclusively by Eli Lilly.
Chow offered boxes containing four Viagra tablets and boxes containing eight Cialis tablets for $10 a box on two Internet websites. The retail cost for each Viagra tablet is about $20, while each Cialis tablet is about $15.20. Working in an undercover capacity, ICE agents purchased about 1,120 Viagra tablets and about 360 Cialis tablets from Chow via the Internet on March 25, 2009, and April 28, 2009. Shipping documents accompanying the pharmaceuticals indicated they were exported from mainland China and Hong Kong.
The pharmaceuticals were later analyzed by the trademark holders and the FDA Forensic Chemistry Center which indicated the pharmaceuticals were counterfeit. These counterfeit pharmaceutical products may have harmed the public if law enforcement were not involved in monitoring the Internet.
Chow has been in federal custody since he was arrested Jan. 27; he will remain in custody to serve out his sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Louis, Southern District of Texas, prosecuted the case.

Source: http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/News/National_News/CHINESE_COUNTERFEIT_DRUG_DISTRIBUTOR_SENTENCED_TO_PRISON/36351

Gold medal paralympic curler sold illegal pills for erectile-dysfunction

Earlier this year James Armstrong & Gregory Armstrong were arrested on suspicion of supplying illegal counterfeit erectile dysfunction medication Cialis. The pair have now pleaded guilty to a US district court and could face up to three years in prison for the charge of selling and dispensing counterfeit drugs with the intent to mislead or defraud.

Customs and Border Protection agents in Los Angeles intercepted a package sent from China with 2,544 fake Viagra pills and 260 counterfeit Cialis pills.

The package was addressed to a mailbox in Blaine, Wash., used by both men. James Armstrong was arrested on April 15 outside the mailbox store. Greg Armstrong admits in his plea agreement that he distributed the drugs.

Counterfeit Viagra market in the rise

The amount of counterfeit impotence medicine smuggled here has grown 23-fold during the past five years.

The National Tax Service detected in January-July this year 18 cases of smuggled impotence medicine worth 90.6 billion won ($77 million) in total, according to the data it submitted to Rep. Lee Ae-joo of the ruling Grand National Party.

The amount is a 23-fold jump from the 3.8 billion won back in 2005 and is expected to rise further by the end of the year.

The amount of counterfeit medical substances smuggled to the local market in January-July reached 90.8 billion won, among which over 99 percent was impotence cures such as Viagra and Levitra, according to officials.

The majority of the detected fake medicine was manufactured in China.

The imitation impotence pills either included an illegal overdose of active ingredients or toxic substances such as mercury or lead.

“The NTS detects the smuggled medicine by randomly inspecting some 10 percent of the imported cargo,” said Rep. Lee, a member of the parliamentary health, welfare and family affairs committee.

“The actual amount of illicitly circulated medicine is expected to be much higher.”

Recently, importance cures have been circulated in bulk in local black markets, according to the police.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s international crime department arrested an ethnic Korean man from China for smuggling and circulating fake Viagra and Cialis, said officials Tuesday.

The smuggler packed 270,000 pills, worth 4.2 billion won in total, in a cargo container and sent them to Korea through the international delivery service.

The fake pills were not only ineffective in curing men’s sexual impotence but often caused medical side effects.

Customers were easily fooled by the smuggled pills as they displayed the exact same visual packaging as the original.

Under the present law, impotence cure pills may only be purchased in pharmacies with a medical doctor’s prescription, but the potential takers are easily attracted to the black market out of shyness to discuss the issue openly, said officials.

Held over homemade 'remedies'

An elderly man was detained by Health Ministry officers recently for making and selling unregistered medicine and pills made from a homemade recipe which included steroids. The man, in his 60s, is believed to have made a good living from the illegal business.

Last week, enforcement officers raided the man's house in Sungai Petani, Kedah, after tests carried out on the medicine and pills sold by him were found to contain steroids and sildenafil, which is popularly known as Viagra.
"The traditional medicines sold by the suspect were produced with a homemade recipe using a cocktail of chemicals which also included steroids and sildenafil," a source said.

"The medicines were purported to help relieve joint pain and erectile dysfunction but they were actually dangerous for consumption."
The source said the house was the location where the man manufactured various types of traditional medicines. "Checks had been carried out a month earlier to detect the illegal factory where unregistered medicines were being manufactured," the source said.
It is understood that during the raid, the man was busy bottling the medicine. When questioned, he initially refused to admit he was producing the medicines.
"He claimed that it had been imported from China based on the labels on the bottles. But the officers later found raw materials which proved he was indeed manufacturing the medicines illegally."
Also found were fake Health Ministry hologram stickers which were pasted on boxes. It is learnt that the medicines were distributed nationwide. The source said the man admitted he had no medical background or expertise in producing traditional medicines.
"He had apparently used information from friends and the Internet before coming up with his homemade formula. Medicines and equipment with a face value of RM200,000 (S$84,423) were seized from the house."

Viagra scam on the rise

Numerous UK universities have been unknowingly helping criminals to sell fake Viagra over the internet.


A security firm has discovered that an increasing number of organisations using the .ac.uk domain are unknowingly pushing customers to websites offering fake erectile dysfunction pills.

Amichai Shulman, of the security company Imperva, which was responsible for uncovering the scam, emphasised how the criminals exploited software to piggyback on the computing resources of various colleges and universities. He also noted how the spammers exploited vulnerabilities in widely used technology called PHP.
The injected PHP codes included search terms such as Viagra and Cialis. Therefore, when a person searched for drugs such as these online, the universities and colleges’ web addresses would pop up in the top results. Anyone who clicked on these links would then be re-directed to a fake pharmacy selling counterfeit pills.

According to a BBC report, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in Kent was one school whose website became victim to the scam.
A spokesperson for the college said, “We immediately took action to temporarily close down and remove the compromised area while we resolved the issue.

Mr. Shulman of Imperva said that the rate such sites were being put up and taken down made it hard to get an exact figure of how many sites had been hit. However, he estimated that “thousands” of sites had been caught out by the drug spammers.

Warning sounded on herbal erectile dysfunction products

Some "herbal remedies" for erectile dysfunction that go by names such as Clyamax, Love Fuel and Sexual Surge could pose a big risk to your health, officials say.

Health Canada is issuing warnings and warning Canadians not to use a number of products that claim to help men who suffer from erectile dysfunction, saying possible side effects of taking the drugs include heart attacks, strokes, chest pain, high blood pressure, abnormal heart beat, headache, facial flushing, indigestion, dizziness, abnormal vision and hearing loss.

Two of the products, STRO Emperor Capsules and 2H and 2D, contain tadalafil, are touted as being traditional Chinese medicinal treatments, but they contain a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.

Health Canada issued the warning about STRO Emperor Capsules after the Irish Medicines Board warned consumers in Ireland not to buy the product. The Hong Kong Department of Health issued a similar warning about 2H and 2D. Health Canada also issued a warning about a number of dietary supplements used for sexual enhancement made by Atlas Operations Inc. of Pompano Beach, Fla., after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration discovered the supplements contain undeclared sulfoaildenafil, an unauthorized substance similar to sildenafil. Sildenafil is also a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.

The names of some of these products included: Amour for him, Clyamax, Depth Charge, Love Fuel, Red Hot Sex, Sexual Surge, Stamin It and Whatzup.

Survey on counterfeit drugs market

According to a survey conducted in 14 European countries, 77 million people (ie one in five Europeans) admitted to buying prescription-only medicines from unlawful sources. A majority prefer to buy prescription drugs on the internet, “without realising that between 50% and 90% of medicines sold online are counterfeit and that some contain dangerous substances, such as boric acid”. The ‘Cracking counterfeit Europe’ survey revealed that the counterfeit drug market is estimated to be worth €10.5 billion. The Germans, Italians and Spaniards are the three biggest consumers of medicines bought illegally. Weight-loss drugs, flu remedies and erectile dysfunction pills are the products sold most often. The survey, carried out between 27 October and 8 November 2009, was initiated by Pfizer, the world’s number one pharmaceutical firm and owner of one of the medicine falsified most often, Viagra.