Shenzhen authorities confiscated 140,000 fake viagra pills worth over 5 million RMB from a counterfeiting ring on April 1. The pills were designed to imitate the effects of the oft-lampooned Pfizer drug used to treat erectile dysfunction – and thankfully so, otherwise that would be an extremely cruel April Fool’s Joke:
The raid came after the Shekou police department received a tip from an anonymous source saying that fake Viagra was being sold online to buyers throughout China. On March 24, after identifying that the suspects were operating from a residential building on Qianhai Road in Nanshan district, the police raided the operation and arrested three suspects.
Testing results from the Shenzhen drug administration confirmed the drugs as counterfeit. The fake Viagra pills was found to mimic the effects of the Pfizer-made drug designed to help cure erectile dysfunction.
According to Pfizer’s senior scientist Amy Callanan, the bogus blue pills may contain chalk, brick dust, paint, or pesticides. In an extreme case, counterfeit pills sold to South Korea that originated in China were found to contain human fetuses, Bloomberg Business Week reported.
Bootlegging Viagra is nothing new in China. This past winter a Shanghai woman was sentenced to 12.5 years for smuggling fake Viagra, and last summer authorities busted a wholesale counterfeiting ring worth 30 million RMB!
