Man arrested for fake skin cream business

Legal manufacturers say sales dropped 50 per cent due to counterfeit brand.


Asad Kharal March 22, 2012

LAHORE:


Officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Health Department found a counterfeit manufacturer of a lotion used to treat scabies at a house in Sabzazar on Thursday.


A man named Tariq Mehmood was arrested and a large quantity of filled and empty bottles of lotion, wrappers, stickers and raw material were seized from the first floor of the two-storey house.

Mehmood, a former employee of the legal manufacturers, was caught filling bottles with the counterfeit lotion. Much of the raw material used to manufacture it was stored in the bathroom, said members of the raiding party. He used to make a counterfeit version of Scabion, a cream used to treat scabies and skin infections.

The raiding team included FIA Anti Corruption Circle (ACC) Assistant Directors Muhammad Ahmed Chaudhry and Khalid Anees and Drug Inspector Hassan Saeed and was accompanied by Chaudhry Arshad Rehman, a representative of Karachi’s ATCO Laboratories, the manufacturers of Scabion. Rehman said the firm had made Rs150 millions in the sale of Scabion in one year, but sales had dropped by about half in the last six months due to the counterfeit product manufactured by Mehmood, who was a former district sales manager for ATCO Laboratories.

The role of other members of the gang involved in the manufacturing, distributing and sale of the lotion will be determined during the investigation, the members of the raiding party said.

A case has been registered against Mehmood under Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using a forged document) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and Sections 23/27 of the Drugs Act of 1976, which deal with the manufacture and sale of counterfeit drugs, at the FIA’s ACC police station.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2012.

COMMENTS (2)

FakeMark | 11 years ago | Reply

@MarkH: Won't be so hilarious if you had experienced scabies.

MarkH | 12 years ago | Reply

That's hilarious. Though I'm not taking the people who got ripped off into mind when I say that. It's the concept of a counterfeit scabies lotion scheme.

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