Supply of fake medicines rise in UK, arrested man sent to jail

LONDON: Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) investigators raided properties in South London here on the other day and seized more than 209250 doses of unlicensed products, including erectile dysfunction medicines worth more than £471000.

A Kenley man has been sentenced for the supply and possession of unlicensed medicines. Kim-Andre Frantzen of Kenley, South London was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court for the supply and possession of substantial quantities of unlicensed medicines.

Frantzen pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 9 months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and 200 hours of unpaid work. He was also ordered to pay a £100 victim surcharge plus costs of £2,500.

MHRA is currently running the FakeMeds campaign to warn people against buying potentially dangerous or useless unlicensed medicines sold by illegal online suppliers, MHRA Head of Enforcement, Alastair Jeffrey said.

He said selling unlicensed medicines is illegal and can pose a serious risk to health of general members of public. “Unlicensed medicines can be dangerous as you just don’t know what’s in them, or if they even work.”

They may contain dangerous ingredients that could have awful consequences for your health. Criminals don’t care about improving your health - they are only interested in your wallet. So why take that risk. We will continue to track down and prosecute those who are willing to put others’ health in jeopardy.

MHRA has also seized dangerous counterfeit and unlicensed medicine worth nearly £16 million in a record haul under the current running campaign, slimming pills, drugs for erectile dysfunction and cancer medicines were taken in a series of raids.

In June 2015, £15.8 million worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines and devices were seized in the UK as part of a global operation including huge quantities of illegally supplied and potentially harmful slimming pills, erectile dysfunction tablets, anemia tablets and narcolepsy tablets.

Unlicensed foreign medicines and fake condoms were also found and removed. “Most of the products seized in UK originated from India, China, Hong Kong and Singapore”, MHRA said. The operation also targeted websites that were offering falsified, counterfeit and unlicensed medicines and led to their closure or suspension by removal of their domain name or payment facility.

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. It resulted in the domestic seizure of almost 6.2 million doses of falsified, counterfeit and unlicensed medicines, 15000 of which were medical devices with a total value of £15.8 million. The UK operation also resulted in 1380 websites being closed, 339 of which were domestic sites.

MHRA revealed that more than half of all medicines bought online are fake. “Side effects can include heart attacks, strokes and death.”

Buying from dodgy websites also increases the risk of being ripped off through credit card fraud or having your identity stolen. The FakeMeds campaign is to help to protect health and money by providing quick and easy tools so you can avoid fake medical products when you shop online, says MHRA.