The UK's drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has warned of the dangers of unlicensed and counterfeit medicines bought online after it revealed today that it has seized a record £15.8m (€22.4m) in stock and has shut down 1,380 websites.
As part of a global crackdown on the fake pharmaceuticals industry, MHRA enforcement officers, along with British police, conducted a series of raids in connection with the illegal supply of counterfeit medicines such as slimming and abortion tablets between 9 and 16 of June.
MHRA officers found huge quantities of illegally supplied drugs and medicines at various addresses across the UK, including slimming pills, anaemia tablets, narcolepsy tablets, abortion pills, fake condoms and two million doses of erectile dysfunction medication from various locations from West London to Sheffield.
Alastair Jeffrey, MHRA's head of enforcement in the UK, said: "Criminals involved in the illegal supply of medical products through the internet aren't interested in your health, they are interested in your money."
According to the MHRA, most of the products seized at the various UK addresses originated from India, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
As part of the UK crackdown, named Operation Pangea VIII, 1,380 websites selling counterfeit drugs to unknowing customers were also closed down, 339 of which were found to be set up and running from within the UK.
The seizures, the biggest recorded to date in the UK, are a result of a month-long international crackdown on the illegal online and offline trade of fake medical products, spanning across 115 countries, which has so far resulted in £51.6m (€72m) worth of counterfeit medicines being confiscated.
Just under a month ago, the Peruvian National Police (PNP) seized over 10 tonnes of illegal medicines in the district of San Martin de Porres as part of the same global operation.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the increase in poor quality medicines is a real and urgent threat to progress in curing some of the world's most dangerous and infectious diseases. Scientists report up to 41% of tested specimens failed to meet quality standards in global studies of about 17,000 drug samples as of 2013.
In Africa, where the selling of counterfeit drugs is on the rise, the British thinktank, the International Policy Network estimates that over 100,000 deaths are caused by fake drugs each year. It also estimates that globally, 700,000 deaths are caused every year by fake malaria and tuberculosis drugs as of 2013.
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