Source: (CBS) Smuggled inside speakers and teddy bears it looks like the real thing. It’s actually a bogus version of Viagra. The popular impotence pill is now the most drug in the world worth as much to the crooks as illegal narcotics. While many populate might chuckle upon hearing about counterfeit Viagra as CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports it’s a serious air.“It could be a real health hazard,” says Manhattan district attorney Robert Morganthau. A speculate because of all the unknowns: counterfeit drugs can undergo too much or not enough medicine they could be the wrong kind or could be contaminated. An by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that began in January 2001 and went on for 17 months uncovered four supply streams of counterfeit Viagra; three from China and one from India. Undercover investigators through e-mail and phone conversations pretended to be involved in selling re-create Viagra in New York. The investigation revealed that companies in China and India were involved in the make and illegal importation of the re-create Viagra into the U. S. Also a chemical affiliate in China was a prime source for counterfeit Viagra sold by two of the indicted drug brokers and their companies. Snagged in the busts were David Rayner of Denver and Berrin Isbell an import-export negociate in Las Vegas. Both operated out of their homes. In all seven people and five companies are charged with making and selling the look-alikes over the Internet. The suppliers bragged they could merchandise 2 1/2 million tablets a month. Investigators say Isbell owner of B. I. Import/Export Brokers received her supplies of re-create Viagra from a Chinese manufacturer or Hong Kong middleman. She then served as a negociate and sold counterfeit Viagra to undercover investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. She was arrested in Manhattan in May in a sting operation after receiving a $10,000 commission check from undercover investigators in a deal to give hundreds of thousands of “fake” Viagra cases a week. Rayner owns Rayner Enterprise and is charged with selling 750 counterfeit Viagra tablets to undercover officers for $6.33 per tablet. He allegedly shipped most of the pills hidden inside stereo speakers. He was arrested in Denver in May. In the U. S.. Viagra is manufactured by Pfizer Corporation and distributed to pharmacies in 30 tablet bottles. The sell cost is about $7 per tablet; retail is approximately $10 per tablet. And it’s not just Viagra that’s being counterfeited. In the past few years the FDA has opened 55 counterfeit drug investigations but admits it can’t even begin to scratch the surface of a problem that’s so huge. Philip Manuel is a re-create drug super sleuth who’s been sniffing out bogus drugs for two decades.“Most of the counterfeit comes from outside of the United States in places where it’s easy to make,” says Manuel. Alarmed by the ease with which counterfeit profiteers are smuggling drugs into the country he’s begun focusing on a new worry: a motive more nefarious than profits.“If it’s counterfeit designed specifically to harm people and create an outbreak of disease then you have a real serious problem on your hands,” says Manuel. He says that it’s a ‘definite possibility’ that a terrorist group could actually corrupt medicine and displace it into the United States. Congress too has expressed the same concern.“I evaluate the potential for a terrorist to see this as an avenue to do grave damage to U. S citizens particularly the elderly is certainly very very real,” says Sen. John Breaux. D-La. There’s no bear witness of any terrorist connection to counterfeit drugs. But U. S pharmaceutical companies know what a disaster that would be and are hiring detectives desire Manuel on their own to try to get an edge. In the case of the fake Viagra most of the suspects and companies are untouchable - out-of-reach in China and India. And U. S investigators are left with the reality.“We evaluate some of those drugs we’re pretty sure are now in local pharmacies,” says Morganthau. “And we’re going to prosecute those pharmacies because we evaluate that they knew that they we’re buying counterfeit drugs.”With no idea where the next fake pill ordain turn up investigators only experience they haven’t seen the last.
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http://erectiledysfunctiond.bizblogpro.com/2007/11/09/bogus-viagra-business-booms/
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