Five guilty of fake Viagra scam [UK]

[Zaprenz]

Five people have been found guilty of conspiracy to supply millions of pounds worth of counterfeit Viagra.

Police say the convictions at Kingston Crown Court are the result of the biggest counterfeit drugs bust in British history.
One of the gang claimed he was working for drugs company Pfizer, but he was trapped after being filmed by undercover investigators.
The drugs were made in India, China and Pakistan before being sent to the UK.
A chance interception by UK customs officers of a parcel containing 12,000 fake Viagra tablets addressed to gang member Gary Haywood led to a huge investigation spanning three continents.
'Lifestyle' medicines
Large quantities of the counterfeit drugs were shipped into the UK from factories abroad, before being repackaged and sold over the internet to customers in Britain, the US, Canada and the Bahamas.
BBC correspondent Jon Brain said the gang relied on customer embarrassment about buying so-called "lifestyle medicines" to prevent them from complaining to the authorities.
Viagra is prescribed to treat men suffering from impotence or erectile dysfunction.
But Sarah Jarvis from the Royal College of General Practitioners warned against taking counterfeit drugs. She told BBC News 24: "It is highly likely that the people who buy these drugs online would not dream of going out into the back streets of India and eating off the floor their lunch from a street café, and yet that's effectively what they're doing."

BBC NEWS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6999160.stm