A man from Missouri recently pleaded guilty to federal charges of distributing counterfeit drugs. Mark Hughes was accused of ordering fake erectile dysfunction medication from overseas and then sold them in an illegal, unlicensed pharmacy and on the street, according to the
Read MoreAlabama will implement a state law January 2011 to keep track of pseudophedrine sales through an electronic database. Attempting to curb the manufacture of methamphetamines, which The Drug Enforcement Agency called the number one drug threat in Alabama for the second year in a row, the state is now requiring all pseudophedrine purchases to be…
Read MoreCVS repeatedly failed to properly monitor pseudophedrine sales according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and has agreed to pay $77.6 million in fines and returned profits. Insufficient monitoring gave methamphetamine traffickers in Southern California and Clark County, NV, access to “large amounts” of pseudophedrine, which led to a rise in methamphetamine production in California. CVS…
Read MoreEastern Europe plays a major role in the counterfeit drug trade, said experts at a recent regional meeting. The two-day meeting was held in the capital of Romania, Bucharest, featured more than 120 anti-counterfeit specialists from Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine, reports AFP. Hungarian customs officer Karolyi Szep said that Eastern…
Read MoreOn October 19, 2010, Google’s attorneys filed an amended complaint in US District Court against four others accusing them of violating the AdWords Program agreement to entice consumers to online pharmacies not approved by the National Association of Board of Pharmacies VIPPS certification program.
In addition to the two defendants original named, Omar Jackman and John Doe “Simon,” the complaint now adds Gregory Gavin, Amanda Odell, Joey Patron and Gina Wyant. Defendants Gavin, Odell and Patron reside in Clarkesville, Tennessee, according to the complaint and defendant Wyant resides in Columbiana, Ohio.
The complaint states that “on information and belief” the defendants worked together. Gavin allegedly registered a domain name, and then all four defendants allegedly opened a number of AdWords accounts to advertise the domain name. The complaint states the defendants were not verified by VIPPS, which is required by the Google AdWords agreement, in order to advertise pharmaceuticals.
A group of Russian criminals have been using internet addresses belonging to Microsoft to re-route consumers to more than 1,000 sites, including a number of illegal online pharmacies that may be selling counterfeit drugs, according to The Register. The news source reports search results from Microsoft’s own servers show that since at least September 22, 1,025…
Read MoreA new initiative between the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) and six government drug control laboratories in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been undertaken to improve the governments’ drug testing capabilities. Attempting to facilitate the development of broader technological expertise in the government drug testing laboratories, The MENA Regional Laboratory Network “aims…
Read MoreA man was recently caught trying to smuggle more than 5,000 doses of counterfeit drugs into Israel. Authorities seized Chen Ben-Zion at Ben Gurion International Airport, after seeing the counterfeit drugs in an x-ray scanner, according to Haaretz.com. Ben-Zion arrived in Israel on a flight from Georgia. Authorities pulled him aside and told him that he…
Read MoreA doctor in the Philippines is facing charges of expired, smuggled and counterfeit drugs. Edwin Pinili of the Pinili Clinic in Calumpang village is facing charges from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Dominic Cerro, special investigator of the NBI’s Sarangani District…
Read MoreOn Sunday October 17th, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced a new campaign entitled "Your Source of Cure Guarantees Treatment," aiming to address counterfeit and contraband drug use and smuggling. Kamal Sabra, assistant to the Health Minister for Pharmacology Affairs, said a consumers now have access to a reporting hotline for unregistered drugs. He also…
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