600 Million Fake Viagra Pills Manufactured and Distributed... 24 Members of the Group Arrested

A group involved in manufacturing and distributing counterfeit Viagra was arrested in the heart of the city.

A fake Viagra factory established in an office in Seoul.
[Photo by Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency]

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on the 9th that they had sent 24 suspects to prosecution on charges of violating the Act on the Control of Public Health Crimes and the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act for manufacturing and distributing counterfeit Viagra in Seoul and the Gangwon area.

They are accused of establishing manufacturing plants in an office in Seoul and a farmhouse in Gangwon from January last year to June this year, distributing 6.13 million counterfeit Viagra pills worth approximately 92 billion KRW. It was investigated that as smuggling medicines became difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they smuggled raw materials from China and directly manufactured and distributed the counterfeit drugs domestically.

According to the police investigation, they smuggled raw materials for Viagra, pharmaceutical leaflets, and packaging container labels from China by hiding them in international mail or other cargo. The counterfeit Viagra they manufactured was distributed to retailers at 233 KRW per pill. Retailers were confirmed to have sold them for up to 1,000 KRW per pill to rural farm workers, construction site laborers, and entertainment industry workers.

The police received related intelligence in January and began an investigation. Through inquiries and mobile phone location tracking, they identified the factories set up in the farmhouse in Gangwon and the office in Seoul, and sequentially arrested the suspects. During the arrest, approximately 88,792 counterfeit Viagra pills manufactured by the group were seized.

A police official stated, "We have secured clues about the supply organization in China and will continue investigations and crackdowns," adding, "Counterfeit medicines have inconsistent or excessively high ingredient contents, which can cause serious side effects, so caution is necessary."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.