Drug counterfeiters changing tactics to bypass EU customs

I guess this is for real...scary...

16/11/2006 - Drug counterfeiters are changing their trafficking tactics to smuggle fake drugs into Europe.

According to new data released by the European Commission last week, in 2005, 148 counterfeit drug shipments were stopped at the EU borders, with three quarters of them originating from India.
With these statistics, it would appear on the surface that India has become a hub in the traffic of fake drugs. Interestingly though, India was only the origin of one per cent of the total amount of fake medicines seized – in terms of quantity, Indonesia is leading the way with 16 per cent of the 500,000 fake drugs seized originating there.

Furthermore, last year's statistics show that there has been an increase in the number of incidences of fake goods seized by European customs in general, however, the actual overall volume of goods seized has dropped.

“2005 is the first year a breakdown of this data for medicines has been made, so it is impossible to give a direct comparison with previous years, however it is clear that European customs have seen a shift in counterfeit drugs traffic with counterfeiters now splitting quantities of drugs and sending them via different routes,” Maria Assimakopoulou, a spokesperson for the European Commission told In-Pharmatechnologist.com.

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