Counterfeit drugs ring smashed

The demand is insatiable, the supply never ending - drug counterfeiting a growing business for criminals making huge profits - at relatively low risk.

This investigation is the biggest global crackdown on the counterfeiters - people who'd become breathtakingly blasé about their likelihood of getting caught.

Gary Haywood was one of four people guilty of conspiracy, caught in a sting operation. They were illegally selling prescription drugs over the internet to customers who didn't realise they were fake.

When investigators raided Haywood's unassuming- looking home they found £1.5m worth of counterfeit drugs in his garage - he was even caught on camera claiming he'd worked for Pfizer, the Viagra manufacturers, and was getting the pills on the cheap.

Haywood was filmed by private detectives, and was too relaxed about his illegal operation, and was caught by the industry policemen, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, after customs intercepted packages of fake Viagra

Unknowingly he led them to the lynchpin of the British arm of the conspiracy - based in Elstree, north of London. Ashish Halai pleaded guilty before the trial started - one of his contracts alone - 180,000 fake Viagra pills delivered every six days to Florida, worth at least half a million pounds a time to him.

An international arrest warrant now out for Pakistan-based Zahid Mirza, his company traded only in fake medicines - he disappeared the day the jury found him guilty.

Drugs seized by the MHRA held in a storeroom, which they investigated the gang for 3 years, also alerted them to the selling of another fake version of the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis. With this drug the gang managed to infiltrate the NHS supply chain - 128,000 pills had to be recalled by Cialis manufacturer, Eli Lily - after a pharmacy dispensed counterfeits.

A booming business - Gary Haywood received 64 parcels of fake Viagra in just 6 months. China, India and Pakistan the major manufacturers - factories working 24 hours a day to meet the demand - this a police raid in Guangdong, southern China last year. Haywood and Halai were sourcing from China.

Boxes of pills flown via Dubai to the UK - hidden in Chinese newspaper and foam - the contents labelled as amongst other things Mineral Supplements for Dogs.

The UK gave the pills an air of legitimacy - our healthcare system still viewed as safe and secure by internet customers - fake pills, blister packs, drug information, and pharmacy-labelled bottles - repackaged and made respectable.

Despatched individually to clients in the UK and mainly America, or in bulk - the court heard - to the Bahamas from where they entered the US - sometimes, bizarrely, individual packages even made another trip to the UK and were then despatched back - the British postmark ensuring they were rarely intercepted by customs.

One of the fakes being sold by the gang, anti-baldness Propecia made by MSD. on the left - the MSD drug, on the right, counterfeits. the only way to ensure you get the real thing, they say, is to get a GP prescription and go to the chemist.

Catching the counterfeiters was a global operation - the jury heard of 11 countries involved China, Pakistan, Kenya, UK, Sweden, Spain, the Bahamas, Mexico, Costa Rica, USA and Canada - 120 people being prosecuted across the world - 7 Chinese factories shut down after the MHRA informed the authorities.

A lucrative business - pills that cost less than a penny to make, being sold for up to £15 each. Sometimes the counterfeiters don't even take the trouble to get the spelling right. They may contain a percentage of the correct ingredients, but they're not licensed or regulated and could be dangerous.

In all these mountains of blister packs, boxes and bottles just a fraction of the counterfeits getting into the UK every year - some like the fake Cialis easy to spot, but the majority so good it's impossible for the untrained eye to recognise they're fake. Which leaves MHRA scientists rather busy - organised gangs profiting in an area where the penalties have been low.

That message clear tonight for one of the gang - Ashish Halai starting a four and a half year prison sentence - his co-conspirators will be sentenced next month.

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