Two men prosecuted after importing fake Durex condoms
30th April 2014
condomHave you ever purchased condoms from a company called ‘Trade Express UK Ltd’? If you have, we’d suggest disposing of them immediately and buying condoms from Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy instead – all condoms we offer to patients are actually genuine! In fact you can pick up a pack of 72 individually wrapped genuine Durex Performa condoms right now from Medical Specialists™, a highly reputable and trusted source, for the low price of just £60. You should only ever obtain medication(s) and products from a fully-registered pharmacy that puts its patients’ needs at the core of its operations. Our advice follows the prosecution of two men who served as directors of the company after they were found guilty of selling counterfeit condoms to their unsuspecting customers. The males, aged 46 and 49, were shown little mercy by the court and hit with suspended jail sentences, financial penalties, and other punishments. For selling the fake condoms, the men have each received eight-month prison sentences -  suspended for two years, are now forced to undertake a whopping 200 hours of unpaid work and are forbidden from being a company director for seven years. In a demonstration of how serious the trade of counterfeit goods and medicine is taken, the court also decided to implement a confiscation order against the pair, totalling approximately £15,000 ($25,000), and both will have to shell out for costs of around £10,600. The punishments came about after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) investigated the two men – directors of the company Trade Express UK Ltd – and discovered the middle-aged men were importing fake Durex condoms into Britain. Then the UK Border Agency swooped onto Felixstowe port in May 2012 and intercepted a shipment of 25,200 packs of counterfeit Durex condoms that were being brought into the country from China, with the men pleading guilty in January of this year. John Wilkinson, the MHRA's Director of Medical Devices, said: “People should be aware that if they buy condoms from illicit websites there is no guarantee that the product that arrives will be safe to use or of good quality. Counterfeit condoms look real but they are badly made and anyone using one has a higher risk of catching a sexually transmitted disease or having an unwanted pregnancy.”