When will people learn that crime doesn’t pay? Yes, the short-term gains could be fruitful for a while, but one way or another, the law will always catch up with you. This is especially true for counterfeit and unlicensed medicines. Despite organisations such as Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) rightfully taking a tough stance on such operations and cracking down on the sale of these drugs, it seems some idiotic and reckless people didn’t get the memo. News emerged this week that a 27-year-old man in Southall, West London has been sentenced after being found guilty of eight counts of possession and supply of significant quantities of unauthorised and unlicensed medication. MHRA officers descended upon a residence in Ealing belonging to the man and seized in excess of 100,000 individual doses of unlicensed erectile dysfunction medicines. The seized drugs had a value of over £30,000. Moreover, a smaller amount of prescription medication was also seized. After an initial hearing, the man admitted his guilt in relation to the charges put before him and was subsequently slapped with a prison sentence of 20 months at Iselworth Crown Court on Friday, starting immediately (concurrent to all counts). Moreover, he also now has to cough-up a £75 victim surcharge. MHRA Head of Enforcement, Alastair Jeffrey, said: “Selling unlicensed medicines is illegal and can pose a serious risk to health. The fact that a medicine is unauthorised means that it has not been subjected to the regulatory scrutiny and quality assurances required to get a license. These products can be dangerous as their contents are unknown and untested and the consequences for your health can be devastating. MHRA will continue to track down and prosecute those who put the public’s health at risk. MHRA is currently running the #FakeMeds campaign to warn people against buying potentially dangerous or useless unlicensed medicines sold by illegal online suppliers.” Medical Specialists® Pharmacy fully support the MHRA campaign and hope it helps to eradicate some of the many illicit suppliers of medicines that still clog-up search engines. Like any counterfeited medicine, fake Viagra can be fatal to a person’s health and filled with toxic ingredients such as paint, brick dust, detergent, talcum powder, boric acid and rat poison. Yes, all of these horrifying ingredients have previously been discovered contained inside fake Viagra pills. Moreover, the fake Viagra could contain little or none of the active ingredient, making the pills essentially useless. On the other end of the scale, they may contain too much of Viagra’s active ingredient (sildenafil) and could prove dangerous for men only used to taking a lower dose of the drug.