Black market boom: counterfeiters make billions of dollars with the pandemic

Chinese authorities have recently cracked down on a counterfeiting gang that had been selling simple saline instead of real coronavirus vaccines worldwide since September. How many similar counterfeiting plants can exist in the world? 

There must be many. The law of supply and demand also applies to the counterfeiting market, and currently coronavirus vaccines and Covid drugs are among the most sought-after commodities in the world. Anything that is in high demand and difficult to obtain will sooner or later appear on the black market.

With the outbreak of the pandemic, face masks, gloves and disinfectants were in short supply, and the demand for tests and all kinds of antiviral drugs was huge. To what extent did counterfeiters jump at this opportunity? 

Counterfeiting pervades the entire pandemic. Authorities have already seized medical devices of uncertain origin around the world: face masks, protective equipment, alcoholic hand sanitizers, Covid tests and anti-coronavirus drugs; and now unfortunately fake vaccines have also appeared on the black market. 

This is more than worrying when you consider that although fake masks or tests do not directly endanger our health, drugs or vaccines produced in totally unknown circumstances might be fatal for those who use them. 

The biggest danger of fake medicines and vaccines is their dubious, uncontrolled origin and ingredients, which is why we are not familiar with either their effects or their side effects. These counterfeit drugs are very often produced under appalling conditions, not only ignoring the particularly strict regulations for the manufacture of medicines, but also in complete disregard for basic hygiene.

You can’t even imagine the enormous health risk involved in using such drugs, as opposed to the perceived benefits such as receiving the Covid vaccine sooner, for example.

The tons of counterfeit medicines seized around the world so far have turned out to contain a wide variety of substances such as brick powder, ink, thinner, paint, heavy metals, arsenic, phosphoric acid, and even rat poison. It is no exaggeration to say that buying medicines or vaccines from an illegal source is like playing Russian roulette. 

What are the typical counterfeiting methods in case of vaccines? 

One method used by the Chinese gang that has been nabbed recently, for example, was to simply sell ampoules filled with saline or distilled water as a vaccine, with strikingly similar labels and packaging as the original.

In some other cases, as we have already seen with injections, counterfeiters get hold of a few consignments of real vaccines, open them up and use the original packaging with an ineffective drug the same way as described earlier, and also sell the real vaccine with new packaging, doubling their profits this way.

What are the most common sources of illegal drugs? 

Absolutely everything is available on the dark web, even Covid vaccines. Although you can say that those who buy things on the dark web don’t deserve better, it is mostly criminal gangs and not single people who buy vaccines there, obviously with the aim of reselling them. So illegal drugs can reach anyone, even those who have never surfed the internet before. Or, for example, it has happened recently that someone offered a large amount of counterfeit Covid vaccine to the Netherlands. 

But for example, anti-Covid drugs like remdesivir or favipiravir are being advertised for sale on publicly available internet sites every day, so you don’t have to use the dark web to get hold of these. 

As far as I know, the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition (OGYÉI) has the right to block such sites. 

Yes, and OGYÉI does use this opportunity, but it would be important to take even stricter action against the operators of such websites. 

You recently mentioned at a professional conference that the National Board Against Counterfeiting (HENT) and the National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) had taken part in two international operations. What can we know about these? 

These were very thoroughly prepared and coordinated operations, which were kept a secret until the very last moment even for the participants. In the course of the operation called ‘STOP’, organized by the World Customs Organization between 11 May and 12 July last year, NAV prevented more than 3.5 million units of medical devices, medicines, disinfectants, protective equipment, and most of all face masks from being put on the market in Hungary alone.

In total, more than 300 million units of illegal, sometimes even expired medicines, 47 million pieces of counterfeit medical masks, gloves, COVID-19 tests, thermometers and protective clothing, and about 2.8 million litres of hand sanitizer gel from uncontrolled sources were seized by the authorities. 

In the other international operation called PANGEA, which took place in March 2020, the authorities found more than 2,000 internet sites advertising fake coronavirus-related products, mainly medical masks; and seized almost 34,000 epidemic-related products at the borders. 

As counterfeiting now offers even bigger profits than usual, similar international operations specifically targeted at Covid-related products are to be expected this year as well. The most important point about these is taking coordinated action, in which Hungary has performed very well: NAV, the police, OGYÉI, consumer protection and HENT closely work together in such cases, which is why we can achieve excellent results in almost all operations. 

How big is the counterfeiting business? 

The overall value of the world’s medicine consumption is now between 1.2 and 1.4 thousand billion dollars a year, and about 10 percent of that is bought by patients through illegal channels. 

In Europe, the direct loss of revenue from the online distribution of falsified medicines is around 17 billion euros a year, accounting for 4.4 percent of the total internal market turnover. 

Although it is estimated that only 0.5 percent of the medicines used in Europe appear in a falsified form in the legal supply chain (pharmaceutical factories, wholesalers and pharmacies), this means 2-2.5 million packs of medicines per year. 

What is the situation in Hungary? 

According to the public survey conducted by HENT in Hungary in 2019, 95 percent of people obtain their medicine mainly from a pharmacy, but at the same time 

10 percent of the respondents said that they also get medicine from unauthorized websites or from acquaintances or relatives. 

The epidemic can now make this trend stronger, so it is very important that the authorities, pharmaceutical wholesalers and retailers, hospitals and healthcare workers all take extra care with Covid drugs and vaccines.

At a briefing by the Operational Unit in January, Ibolya Csákó, senior official of the Hungarian Police also warned everybody against trusting vaccine advertised by criminals on the internet, because they are definitely fake. 

It is very important to understand that currently there are definitely no authorized Covid vaccines available commercially, nor can they be purchased online; they can only be obtained at vaccination centres according to the vaccination schedule set up by the government. 

You mentioned at the conference that you had already come across advertisements that were offering to deliver vaccines to your home. Did this happen in Hungary?

No, but it may happen in Hungary too.  There are people who don’t mind taking a risk and try to ‘jump the queue’, especially if those who have been vaccinated will have certain benefits, such as being allowed to travel, for example.

Whose responsibility is it if someone falls ill or, God forbid dies because of a fake medicine or vaccine? 

The production and illegal distribution of counterfeit medicines is a criminal offence; the consumer, however, is not prosecuted. If a healthcare institution or healthcare professional, or an employee of a licensed manufacturer, wholesaler, or healthcare provider is involved, it carries a longer prison sentence of up to five years.

So far, only the Chinese counterfeiting gang has been caught by the police, but what you have been saying suggests that such gangs are operating all over the world. 

Counterfeit medicines that are marketed worldwide are mainly produced in India, China or the Middle East. However, it does not mean that it cannot happen elsewhere: 

in Hungary, the police have already cracked down on plants where counterfeiters have been producing fake growth hormone (somatotropin), an antipsychotic called Rivotril, or even fake anti-fungal powder, and there was a case where contraceptive pills meant to be discarded and burned were later sold on the black market.

It’s been 7 years since these crimes have been specifically identified by the Hungarian criminal law and there have been 858 such cases so far investigated in Hungary, so unfortunately we are fighting against a thriving black market.