Interpol: clamping down on pharma crime
Pharmaceutical crime is a serious public health issue which puts lives at risk, causes harm to patients, and undermines confidence in the entire health system, affecting the reputation of manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacists, doctors, private organisations and government institutions alike.
The term ‘pharmaceutical crime’ encompasses a wide range of criminal activities, including the falsification of medical products, their packaging and associated documentation; the manufacture, trade, transport and distribution of fake or illicit medicines and medical devices; the theft, fraud, diversion, smuggling, trafficking, and illegal trade of medical products and other crimes associated with such activities.
Transnational organised crime groups have become increasingly involved in pharmaceutical crime due to intensified international commerce, the rapid expansion of the internet, the widespread use of ‘free zones’ in international trade, and easier access to sophisticated printing and manufacturing technologies. As the world’s largest international police organisation with 190 member countries, Interpol is uniquely placed to lead the fight against pharmaceutical crime and support national law enforcement and partners in the health sector to identify and locate the perpetrators.
Police in Interpol’s member countries are reporting that criminals involved in pharmaceutical crime are operating through informal networks. Nevertheless, traditional organised crime groups across the globe are also involved in pharmaceutical crime throughout the entire supply chain, from manufacturing to trafficking and distribution.
A trend in many member countries is the increase of illicit online pharmacies, operated by both informal networks and organised criminal groups. Large amounts of money are involved in these transnational criminal enterprises: one illicit online pharmacy network, which was dismantled by US authorities in 2011, managed to accumulate $55 million during two years of operation. Other crimes, such as money laundering, prostitution networks and weapons smuggling, are often linked to the criminals involved in pharmaceutical crime.
Falsification affects all branded and generic medical products—medicines, pharmaceutical ingredients, medical devices and diagnostic equipment—and occurs in all regions of the world. The consequences of the use of falsified products can be extremely dangerous: deliberately mislabelled pharmaceuticals containing a toxic substance caused more than 400 deaths in Haiti, Panama and the US in 1996, 2006 and 2008. A collaborative study conducted by Interpol, the World Health Organization, the US Pharmacopeial Convention and other stakeholders has shown that approximately half of the samples of antimalarials collected in the Greater Mekong Subregion contained no or insufficient amounts of active substances.
It is difficult to accurately determine the exact scale of the problem as it is nearly impossible to obtain a precise estimate of the amount of falsified medical products on national markets. However, more than 2,000 incidents were detected in 2013, amounting to more than five cases per day. Even the smallest cases concerned at least one production batch, which amounts to thousands of tablets. The 2013 figure represents roughly a ten-fold increase in reported cases since 2000. While this rise undoubtedly reflects improved detection and reporting capacities, it also indicates that the problem is growing in numbers and importance.
Causes of crime
Many factors contribute to creating a political and regulatory environment in which pharmaceutical crime can thrive. Their relative importance varies considerably among countries. The following factors have been identified:
