Illegal consignments of medicines intercepted in Switzerland

Keystone / Alessandro Della Bella

Some 900 consignments were checked in Switzerland at the Zurich-Mülligen postal sorting centre as part of an international crackdown in illegal medicines.

Of these, 230 contained counterfeit or illegally imported medicines, Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, said in a press release on Tuesday.

More than half of them came from India and Eastern Europe and over 50% were erectile stimulants and a quarter were psychotropic drugs. The seized drugs have been reported to the cantons, which will initiate criminal proceedings.

The raid in Switzerland was part of the annual “Pangea XVI” week of action to combat the illegal online trade in medicines, in which 89 countries took part. In total, the international operation resulted in the seizure of around seven million dollars worth of illegal and counterfeit medicines. In addition, 1,300 websites were shut down.

Fight against online sellers

This year, Swissmedic focused on vendors online. Through targeted analysis of websites and posts on social networks, it was observed that traffickers are hijacking legal Swiss websites that have no connection with medicines, such as sports clubs, SMEs or gaming groups.

The criminals hack into these sites and insert their own pages offering counterfeit medicines and doping products. In this way, they try to give the impression that they are dealing with an official Swiss supplier.

As part of Operation Pangea, Swissmedic informed the webmasters of 67 compromised websites and asked them to resolve the problem. The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products also analysed trading platforms abroad. The managers of these sites were also contacted and removed more than 200 illegal offers in Switzerland.

Swissmedic notes that monitoring social networking sites is more difficult. The products offered in posts sometimes indicate Swiss mobile phone numbers as contacts. Buyers then pay for the transaction on the usual payment platforms. This makes it difficult to trace the criminal organisations behind them.

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