Sildenafil citrate tablets seized at UK airport

A shipment of 80,000 sildenafil citrate tablets - the active ingredient in Pfizer's erectile dysfunction product Viagra - has been intercepted at Newcastle Airport in the UK by Border Agency officers.

The haul was in transit via road freight from Heathrow Airport and had entered the country on a flight from Mumbai, India. The shipment was mislabelled as containing food additives.

At present it is not known whether the items are counterfeit or genuine product diverted from the usual supply chain as a result of theft or diversion.

The value of the haul is hard to gauge. There is a market in the UK for individual tablets on the street (often referred to as 'poke') with each selling at a few pounds per pill, indicating that the shipment could have been worth £300,000-£500,000.

Fred Simmons, assistant director of the UK Border Agency, said: “Medicines smuggled into the country illegally are often found to be counterfeit and as such pose a huge health risk to the end user."

“Anyone tempted to buy these illegitimate products, whether over the Internet or otherwise, should also remember that the gangs smuggling these goods often have links to serious organised crime."

That sentiment was echoed by Mick Deats, head of enforcement at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, who said "if customers could see the filthy conditions in which some of these medicines were being transported, stored and handled, they wouldn’t touch them."

The Border Agency and MHRA are now investigating the players involved in bringing the shipment into the UK. The confiscated tablets, which weighed about 107kg and were being transported in eight crates, will now be destroyed.

Postal order

Border Agency officials also listed counterfeit Viagra as being among a huge haul of fake goods intercepted at Coventry's International Postal Hub in the build-up to Christmas. During the first week of December, officers intercepted one parcel containing 8,000 fake Viagra-type tablets.