Police nab counterfeit pharmaceuticals gangs

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals pose an ongoing and serious threat to public health in Viet Nam. Lacking active ingredients, or including potentially harmful elements, their distribution is clearly a crime of the utmost severity.

The discovery, investigation, prevention and prosecution of those involved in such activities have become top priorities for the authorities, with increasingly severe sanctions being handed down by the courts. Over the past two years, courts have been imposing steadily increasing criminal sentences on infringers. Recently, on March 26, a court imposed a total of 21 years and 6 months in prison on a criminal ring of six people, with ringleader Mai Cong Phu sentenced to the highest penalty of five years.

Phu was arrested in January 2009 carrying a bag containing a range of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Upon his arrest, HCM City Police immediately launched raids on several locations around the city, seizing millions of counterfeit tablets, blister packs, boxes and bottles which had been produced and distributed by the gang. The drugs included TANAKAN (used to treat disorders of the central nervous system), VOLTAREN (used to treat pain or inflammation caused by arthritis), and CEFZIL (an antibiotic). The HCM City People's Procuracy tried the gang on criminal charges for producing and trading counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

The case against Phu was just one in a series of counterfeit pharmaceutical networks busted by police and the Market Management Bureau in HCM City.

Last July, police caught Phan Minh Trung, a representative for a pharmaceuticals company in HCM City, transporting two cartons of counterfeit pharmaceuticals to the city's eastern bus station. Inspecting Trung's home, police found an array of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, again including TANAKAN. Despite Trung's in-depth knowledge of pharmaceuticals, he was alleged to have co-operated with other counterfeiters to purchase counterfeit pharmaceuticals and was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

These cases demonstrate that authorities were willing to take stringent action to stop the counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, although there remains a long way to go before the problem is brought fully under control.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

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