Illegal medicines worth more than £30 million seized in the UK in 2023
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), working with law enforcement partners, seized more than 15.5 million doses of illegally traded medicines with a street value of more than £30 million during 2023.
This includes more than two million doses seized during Operation Pangea, the international initiative of global enforcement partners that targets the illegal internet trade in medical products.
Last year’s seizures included prescription-only anti-anxiety medicines, opioids and sleeping pills and falsified and unlicensed lifestyle products such as erectile dysfunction and hair loss medications, as well as a small number of aesthetic products such as Botox and semaglutide-containing ‘weight loss’ products.
Working with partners, the MHRA also disrupted more than 12,000 websites illegally selling medical products to the public and shut down almost 3,000 social media profiles during the year.
The MHRA works with many online marketplaces, social media platforms and technology providers, as well as a wide range of law enforcement agencies at home and abroad to investigate and remove potentially harmful medical products that are offered illegally to the public.
One such collaboration, with eBay, saw the MHRA providing support and advice that resulted in eBay’s cutting-edge AI algorithm successfully recognising and blocking more than half a million unregulated prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines and medical devices before they could even be offered for sale to the public.
Andy Morling, MHRA Deputy Director (Criminal Enforcement), said:
Public safety is our number one priority. Our Criminal Enforcement Unit works hard to prevent, detect and investigate illegal activity involving medicines and medical devices, to protect people and defeat this harmful trade.
This year, working with partners across public and private sectors, our efforts have led to more medicines seizures than ever, custodial sentences for offenders, the removal of criminal profits and considerable success in disrupting the trade online.
We would urge everyone to think very carefully before buying medicines they see online and to take the necessary steps to assure themselves the seller is legitimate. Buying powerful medicines from illegitimate sellers poses a real and immediate danger to your health, as you have no idea what they might actually contain.
If you suspect that you have seen illegal products being sold online, you can help us take action by reporting your concerns through our Yellow Card scheme.
The dangers of unlicensed medicines
If a medicine is unlicensed, it will not have been assessed by the MHRA for its safety, effectiveness or the quality of its manufacturing and distribution processes. Anyone buying such a product cannot be sure what it contains or whether it will cause them harm.
In the courts
The sale of medicines and medical devices is strictly controlled in the UK, with certain products only permitted for sale through registered pharmacies or supplied on prescription from a qualified healthcare professional.
Last year, six MHRA investigations resulted in significant custodial sentences for many of those convicted. These prosecutions followed detailed investigations, the seizure of millions of doses of medicines and the removal of hundreds of thousands of pounds of criminal profits.
MHRA safety advice when buying medicines online
Be careful when buying medicines online
Medicines are not ordinary consumer goods and their sale and supply is tightly controlled. Websites operating outside the legal supply chain may seem tempting, for example, offering a prescription medicine without a prescription. Not only are these sites breaking the law – they are putting your health at risk.
Criminals use a variety of techniques to sell medicines illegally online. Some are sold using websites designed to look like legitimate pharmacies or online retailers, while others might be advertised via online marketplaces or social media sites.
Visit the #FakeMeds website for tools and resources to help people purchase medicines or medical devices safely online.
Anyone who suspects that their product is fake is encouraged to report it directly to the Yellow Card scheme, through the website (https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/) or by searching the Google Play or Apple App stores for MHRA Yellow Card.
Notes to editors
- Seizure figures include all seizures made by the MHRA between 1 January and 31 December 2023, as well as seizures made with law-enforcement partners between 1 January and 30 September 2023. Partner data for seizures made between 1 October and 31 December 2023 have not yet been submitted to the MHRA at the time of publication. Therefore, full year data has been classed as provisional and may be subject to change.
- The MHRA works continuously with national and international partners to prevent fake medicines from entering the UK. Its #FakeMeds campaign provides quick and easy tools to help the general public avoid fake and substandard medical products.
- The Yellow Card scheme enables the MHRA to monitor safety concerns such as suspected side effects or adverse incidents involving healthcare products. These include medicines, vaccines, blood factors and immunoglobulin products, medical devices, e-cigarettes and complementary therapies such as homeopathies. The scheme also collates information about suspected safety concerns involving defective, falsified or fake healthcare products. Anyone can report defective or fake healthcare products to the Yellow Card scheme via the Yellow Card scheme website or app.
- Operation Pangea is an international initiative to target the illegal internet trade in medical products. It was instigated by the MHRA in April 2006 and started as the UK Internet Day of Action. The annual operation is now the largest internet-based enforcement action of its kind and is coordinated by Interpol, together with the World Customs Organisation (WCO), the Permanent Forum of International Pharmaceutical Crime (PFIPC), the Heads of Medicines Agencies Working Group of Enforcement Officers (WGEO), Europol and the Pharmaceutical Security Institute (PSI), and supported by the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) and private sector companies.
- A prescription-only medicine has to be prescribed by a doctor or other authorised health professional and it has to be dispensed from a pharmacy or from another specifically licensed place. It is illegal to advertise prescription-only medicines to the public. Controlled drugs are drugs named in the misuse of drugs legislation, the most common of which are on the controlled drugs list.
- Approximately 80% of the items blocked from sale were medicines that contravened eBay’s prescription and over-the-counter drugs policy. Items that contravened eBay’s medical devices policy made up the other 20%.
- The Criminal Enforcement Unit is a dedicated law enforcement capability within the MHRA. The unit collects and analyses criminal intelligence to identify illegal activity involving medical products, and investigates cases to prevent and disrupt offending and bring offenders to justice.
- The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for regulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK by ensuring they work and are acceptably safe. All our work is underpinned by robust and fact-based judgements to ensure that the benefits justify any risks.
- The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
- For media enquiries, please contact the [email protected], or call on 020 3080 7651.