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Gang member jailed for selling fake Viagra

Section: Health

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LONDON (AFP) - A member of an international crime ring which bought fake Viagra and drugs against baldness from factories in Asia before selling them on to unsuspecting customers at a huge profit has been jailed in Britain.

Ashish Halai was described by prosecutors as the British "lynchpin" of the operation, which bought bogus drugs for as little as 25 pence in China and Pakistan before they were sold online for up to 20 pounds per tablet.

Halai, 31, of Borehamwood, was jailed for four-and-a-half years at Kingston Crown Court after the largest investigation of its kind.

Sentencing him, Judge Nicholas Price said it was "an undeniably lucrative business where consumers are easy prey, often too embarrassed to seek help from their doctors".

He noted that there was no evidence that the fake drugs had caused anyone any harm.

Halai, who was sentenced on four counts of selling fake medication, is one of four men who smuggled the drugs into Britain.

Gary Haywood, 58, of Leicester, Ashwin Patel, 24, of north London and Zahid Mirza, 45, of Ilford, Essex, were found guilty of involvement in the conspiracy in August and will be sentenced next month.

The court heard that the fake drugs involved were almost identical to the real products and contained around 90 percent of the active ingredient found in the genuine drugs.

British officials were alerted to the huge manufacturing and supply ring, which also had operations in the United States, the Bahamas and Mexico, following a chance seizure of thousands of tablets.

Investigators are still trying to work out how much money the men made from the ring.

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