Fake painkillers seized in big bust

FIA raided Kachi Gali medicine market Thursday and confiscated counterfeit medicines worth more than Rs5 million.

KARACHI: The Drug Control Administration of the Sindh Health Department in collaboration with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided the Kachi Gali medicine market on Thursday and confiscated counterfeit medicines worth more than Rs5 million.

“The spurious medicines include a variety of recognised brands  such as Panadol CF, Warren, Omiprazole, Coughcol, Plavix, Cytotec, Zantac and Viagra,” Adnan Rizvi, Drug Inspector of the Sindh Health Department, told The Express Tribune. “Packing material and accessories provided with certain drugs were also found.”

The fake medicines were confiscated from four godowns and five shops at the market.

“Three suspects were arrested for the cognisable offence and four godowns and a shop at the market have been sealed,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, Director FIA Sindh, told a press conference on Friday,

“Two of the arrested suspects are brothers, who belong to an organised racket of fake medicines. They were also detained before on similar charges,” said Salman Waheed, Inspector Crime Circle Karachi, who is heading the investigation. He said it took the FIA almost a month to trace and crack down on the racket after receiving complaints from patent companies. He said a similar operation was carried out in September 2009.

“Our Drug Act is so weak and the procedure of implementing it so difficult that it leads to almost no punishment for the violators,” he said. While there is a punishment of four to five years of prison for such offenders, most criminals usually escape with an FIR and a fine of Rs20,000. “It’s a small amount to pay for the huge profits they make,” he said, and recommended that the health minister should take the initiative to change the related laws. Fake medicines are produced in Lahore and Karachi and also smuggled into the country from Afghanistan, India and Iran.

Jamil Afghani, legal consultant of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement and representative of the private pharmaceutical company Pfizer, said the investigation started three months ago when they heard about the sale of counterfeit medicines. “We were informed that our products like Lipitor are being sold at rates startlingly lower than their actual price. That rang the alarm bells,” he said.

Adnan Rizvi said the court will decide the punishment for the suspects after taking into account the seized medicines’ lab test results, which will determine their harmful effects.

Iqbal Bengali, Country Manager Pfizer, told The Express Tribune that while counterfeit medicines have always caused major financial losses to drug companies, it’s not about money, but the lives that are at stake. “It becomes a matter of life and death,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2010.