£15.8 million worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines and devices have been seized in the UK as part of a global operation reports the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ( MHRA ).
The seizures — the biggest to date in the UK — include huge quantities of illegally supplied and potentially harmful slimming pills, erectile dysfunction tablets, anaemia tablets and narcolepsy tablets. Unlicensed foreign medicines and fake condoms were also found.
The seizures are a result of a month-long international crackdown on the illegal internet trade of medical products that yielded £51.6 million worth of items from 115 different countries globally.
The ‘Operation Pangea VIII’ initiative, coordinated through INTERPOL, concluded with a week of international raids between 9 and 16 June that resulted in 156 arrests worldwide.
In the UK, MHRA enforcement officers, with assistance from local police, raided known addresses in connection with the illegal internet supply of potentially harmful medicines.
MHRA Head of Enforcement, Alastair Jeffrey, said: "Operation Pangea is the global response to internet-facilitated medicines and devices crime. As a result of our intelligence-led enforcement operations, we have seized £15.8 million worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines and 15,000 devices in the UK alone, which is almost twice as much as we recorded last year."
The operation also closed or suspended websites that were offering falsified, counterfeit and unlicensed medicines by removing their domain name or payment facility. In the UK alone, 1,380 websites were closed down, 339 of which were domestic sites.
The majority of the products seized in the UK originated from India, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
MHRA has continued to target YouTube accounts and videos as criminals seek to exploit new channels to profit from the illegal sale of medicines - resulting in the removal of more than 320 videos.
Internationally, results show that almost 150,000 packages were inspected by regulators and customs officials, resulting in the seizure of over 20.7 million doses of unlicensed and counterfeit medicines worth approximately £51.6 million.
If someone suspects their medicine may be counterfeit, contact the MHRA ’s designated 24-hour anti-counterfeiting hotline on 020 3080 6701 or counterfeit@mhra.gsi.gov.uk.