Internet orders of impotence drugs cause headache for Finnish customs
Nearly 5,000 doses confiscated this year
|
|
|
The illegal Internet trade of pharmaceuticals over the Internet is proving to be a major burden for customs officials in Southern Finland.
Mika Pitkäniemi, a top official at Finnish Customs, says that the problem is taking up working hours that would be better spent on monitoring foreign trade and fighting serious crime.
Violations of customs regulations on medicine imports more than quadrupled in 2005. At Helsinki-Vantaa Airport 379 such cases were revealed last year. It is likely that only a fraction of medicines illegally ordered by Finns are found.
The pace has grown more intense during the first two months of this year, with 65 pharmaceutical crimes and violations being revealed, which is clearly more than a year ago.
Confiscations are noticeably increasing as air traffic increases.
The medicines found by customs officials usually come from India via air mail, or from Thailand in the baggage of returning passengers. Officials fear that direct flights between Helsinki and New Delhi will bring a surge in attempts to smuggle unauthorised medicines and illegal drugs.
The overwhelming majority of illegal imports of medicines involves erectile dysfunction drugs. Customs at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport has confiscated nearly 5,000 pills or dose bags this year containing the active ingredients sildenafil or taldalafil. Usually the preparations are illegal pirated versions.
"With mail order medicines you never know what they contain. For this reason, the person who makes the order takes a personal risk", says Professor Heikki Pyysalo, director of the Finnish Customs Laboratory. He recalls a case in which a batch of medicines that came in from the Far East contained nearly lethal doses of mercury.
In addition to erectile dysfunction drugs, there are also illegal imports of diet pills and medicines that promote hair growth.
The sharp increase in marketing of erectile dysfunction medicines on the Internet is the main factor in the increase in pharmaceutical crime.
"Especially the surge in e-mail ads entices people to buy inexpensive impotence medicines", Mika Pitkäniemi says.
Many of the Internet advertisements are in Finnish, and orders can also be placed in Finnish.
Customs authorities say that many of the servers that promote erection medicines are located in Europe, but the pills themselves are mailed from Asia, where they are also manufactured. India is the most common country of origin.
Erection medicines cost EUR 4-5 on the street, which is half of what legal medicines cost in a Finnish pharmacy.
"Ordering medicines on the Internet is easy, and there are no warnings that it is illegal to send them through the mail", says Risto Sirola, the head of airport customs. He notes that Finns have gradually begun to have more trust in on-line buying and paying by credit card, which has led to an increase in illegal orders of pharmaceuticals.
On-line shops often give a delivery guarantee. In some cases, the person ordering the medicines gets a third delivery, after the previous ones have been stopped by customs.
Even the smallest violation involving medicines leads to a complicated process, in which samples are sent to the customs laboratory, statements are given, interrogations held, charges pressed, before the case goes before a court. Most convictions are punished with a fine.
Typical buyers of erectile dysfunction medicines are Finnish men with no previous criminal records. A normal order is a package of 10 - 30 pills.
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 27.3.2006 - TODAY |
 Internet orders of impotence drugs cause headache for Finnish customs |
|
