China's police on Saturday announced that over 1,300 people have been arrested as suspects involved in illegal drug sales online amid a special crackdown. Chinese police launched a special combat, including three intensive raids, against illegal online drug sales and sales of fake drugs since June this year and to date police forces in 29 provincial-level regions have closed 140 unlicensed websites and online drug stores, according to a statement by the Ministry of Public Security.
Moreover, police has seized more than nine tonnes of raw materials for fake drug manufacture worth more than 250 million euros. The statement said illegal online sellers often use deceptive advertisements to lure buyers and most of the drugs were found to be made of starch or spoiled materials. The seized fake drugs purported to deal with illnesses ranging from children's colds and flu to heart problems, and had been advertised online.
In July the cabinet's state food and drug administration announced a six-month nationwide crackdown on the sale of illegal medicine, piling pressure on a sector already reeling from a bribery investigation at the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline. Widespread counterfeit drugs and false advertising have been a thorn in the side of Chinese regulators for years, and the drug agency has conducted campaigns in the past to crack down.
Prosecutions for producing or selling fake drugs or toxic food jumped to more than 8,000 in 2012, more than five times the number in 2011, according to a report by China's top prosecutor in March. Beijing pledged to clean up the medicine sector following the deaths of at least 149 Americans who took contaminated Chinese supplies of the blood-thinner heparin in 2008. But the country's complicated and still developing regulatory environment has stymied efforts at tackling the problem, which infuriates Chinese consumers, who also express anger at what they see as the high price of legitimate medicine.
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