Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2429

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Xinhua .
China, US jointly seize 440,000 pills of counterfeit Viagra
People's Daily Online ( China ) 2005 Sep 9
http://english.people.com.cn/200509/09/eng20050909_207454.html

Keywords:
fake Viagra Cialis Levitra Lipitor

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments: How do you know if you’re getting the real thing or a fake pill?
That will depend to some extent on which country you live in and whether or not you purchase through the internet, however even countries like ‘… the U.S., Britain, Israel and Switzerland.’ are not safe. See also HSL2748 for more on this subject.

Full text:

UPDATED: 08:28, September 09, 2005
China, US jointly seize 440,000 pills of counterfeit Viagra

Chinese police captured 440,000 fake pills of Viagra and other fake drugs in a joint action with their peers in the United States, with one American and 11 Chinese suspects arrested, an official of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Thursday in Beijing.

The drugs seized worth more than 400 billion yuan (49 billion US dollars), which are mainly male sexual dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, as well as the cholesterol drug Lipitor, according to Gao Feng, an official with the MPS.

On August 26 this year, local police in north China’s port city of Tianjin arrested three Chinese suspects selling the bogus Viagra and

Cialis through the Internet, and detected they colluded with Richard Cowley, an American man, undertaking transnational counterfeit drug selling.

The polices of both countries jointly seized three underground factories and eight Chinese men making the fake medicines in central China’s Henan province on Sept. 2. Meanwhile, US authority arrested Cowley in Washington state and charged him with importing and distributing counterfeit goods, Gao said.

So far, Cowley and one of the Chinese suspects Li Wenhui has already sold large quantities of the fake medicines to 10 countries including the U.S., Britain, Israel and Switzerland.

The action, called “Operation Ocean Crossing,” was the second Sino-US cooperation to crack down on intellectual property rights infringement.

“The action marks a milestone in tracking down transnational crimes between the two countries, and the United States expects further cooperation with China in this field,” said Andy Yu, a counselor with the US Embassy in Beijing.

Between November 2004-July 2005, Chinese police uncovered 1,804 copy-violation cases ranging from audio visual products to daily necessities, arrested 3,667 suspects, and recovered financial losses worth more than 420 million yuan (about 52 million US dollars).

Source: Xinhua