18,000 websites selling ‘counterfeit’ drugs shut down

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), have reported that more than 18,000 websites selling illegal medicines, have been shut down during a global crackdown on illegal internet trade in pharmaceuticals. Domain names for the websites have been taken down or the payment facilities have been removed.

In the UK, 384 domain names have been suspended and a further 120 are being shut down. During the worldwide crackdown, conducted by Interpol across 100 countries, more than £6.5 million worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines were seized. The operation, which ran from September 25 to October 2, resulted in 79 people being arrested including two in the UK. More than £3.8 million of unlicensed medicines have been seized by the MHRA and the Border Force.

MHRA acting head of enforcement Nimo Ahmed said, “This week we have recovered a range of medicines being supplied without prescriptions and stored in unacceptable conditions, by people who are not qualified to dispense medicines. When you buy medicines from an unregulated source, you don’t know what you’re getting, where it came from or if it’s safe to take. The dose could be too high or too low, or the ingredients could break down incorrectly in the body which makes the medicine ineffective. Illegal suppliers do not adhere to quality control or standards that are required in the licensed trade. If people could see the filthy conditions some of these medicines are being made, stored and transported in, they certainly wouldn’t touch them.”

Neal Patel, spokesman for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said, “It is hugely worrying that prescription medicines are available from illicit websites. This is a serious patient safety issue. Not only is supplying prescription only medicines without a prescription illegal, it means that the user has no information about the ingredients, dosage instructions, or potential side effects, so patients would not be receiving proper healthcare advice.”

This is the fifth year of a coordinated action against websites selling illegal and sometimes fake medicines. Most of the haul is Viagra and assorted versions of it; one raid had turned up 13,000 packets, labelled as a Chinese herbal remedy for erectile dysfunction. It claims to have none of the side effects of synthetic western medicines.

But when they test it on the spot, they find it contains the same active ingredient as Viagra (sildenafil). If you have a heart condition that might be extremely dangerous, and you might have turned to a herbal remedy precisely because you have a heart condition, that means your GP wouldn’t prescribe Viagra.

To conclude Neal Patel said, “We would urge the public if they wish to buy medicines online, to always check that they are dealing with a genuine pharmacy.” This is a problem we at Medical Specialists have repeatedly reported on and campaigned against. Unfortunately these illegal online pharmacies, who have no regard for the public’s safety, have given online pharmacies somewhat of a bad name.

However here at Medical Specialists we are based in the UK, we only supply genuine branded medication such as (Pfizer) Viagra, we only dispense medication after a patient has undergone a consultation with one of our fully registered GP’s, who will make sure the medication is both right and safe for you. In addition to that we are fully registered with the National Pharmacy Association and the General Pharmaceutical Council.

Two men from Brighton arrested after fake Viagra stash found

Two men have been arrested after 90,000 illegal counterfeit Viagra tablets were discovered in a flat.

They were detained after police and health officials from the MHRA raided the home and a lock-up in central Brighton as part of an international crack down on illegal and fake dangerous drugs.

Investigators revealed they had discovered the fake tablets along with 4,800 Valium pills in the raids. Two men, both middle-aged and from Brighton, were arrested on suspicion of selling the fake erectile dysfunction tablets via an unlicensed website.

The fake Viagra tablets which were found were called Kamagra which are an Indian counterfeit of the original licensed Pfizer brand, which sale of them in the UK is illegal.

The Interpol-led operation saw officers from the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), supported by Sussex Police, raided the Brighton locations after receiving intelligence.

A spokeswoman from the MHRA said the two men who had been arrested were not related.

70,000 fake Viagra tablets found by customs officials at Ben-Gurion Airport

A Passenger who arrived from Beijing via Frankfurt found to have NIS 1.5 million worth of illegal Viagra pills in his suitcase.

Customs authorities at Ben-Gurion International Airport over the weekend foiled an attempt to smuggle 70,000 fake Viagra pills into Israel from China. The value of the pills was estimated to be

1.5 million shekels or 271,639.91 Pounds.

The passenger flew to Israel from Beijing via Frankfurt. Authorities think that the passenger chose that itinerary out of the belief that customs officials would be less vigilant at 4 a.m. in the morning, which was the arrival time of the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt.

The fake pills were found in the passenger's suitcase.

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.