Police officers who raided a laboratory at a house in Bydgoszcz a city in Northern Poland seized 100,000 fake Viagra pills and equipment according to the Central Investigation Bureau (CBSP) (here in Polish).
The police also swooped on addresses in Wielkopolska, Kujawy-Pomerania, Pomerania and Silesia and arrested 14 people linked to the laboratory.
CBSP spokeswoman Agnieszka Hamelusz told us the “laboratory was located in tenement house” and could only be accessed through “secret passages.”
Technology seized
The Bydgoszcz laboratory housed 48 production machines – worth an estimated PLN4m ($1m) - used to manufacture and package the counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills.
Hamelusz confirmed the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to make the fakes were manufactured in China. She explained that CPSB officers tracked shipments sent to Poland from China via the UK, Greece and Romania.
“We know the products are from China and know the way [they were imported] but it is a secret investigation and I can’t tell you more than was in official statement.”
According to the CBSP the counterfeit pills - which were branded as either the Pfizer product Viagra or as generirc erectile dysfunction treatments - were sold online by the gang.
The agency added that the fakes had generated “tens of millions of zlotys."