Counterfeiters of Weight Loss Products from China Arrested
Jared A. Favole of the Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that the Justice Department charged two people with illegally importing counterfeit weight-loss products from China, including GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Alli, that contained ingredients that can lead to heart attacks.
Using Web sites, the postage service, email accounts and several bank accounts in the U.S. and abroad, the Justice Department said the two Chinese-born people illegally imported weight-loss products they claimed were cheap versions of government-approved medicines.
At least one person fell victim to the scheme, the Justice Department said. The unidentified man had been taking an authentic, government-approved version of Glaxo's Alli when he found a Web site where he could find purported cheaper versions of the medicine. The man ordered the pills, which were supposedly counterfeited by one of the people arrested, and began suffering from headaches, chills and heart-attack-like symptoms.
The Justice Department said it arrested Sengyang Zhou, a Chinese national, in Hawaii earlier this week. Mr. Zhou identified himself as the maker of counterfeit Alli, according to the complaint filed against him. The department also arrested Qing Ming Hu, a U.S. citizen born in China, in Plano, Texas, earlier this week. Mr. Zhou could face about two decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Mr. Hu could face several years and prison and a $250,000 fine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued several alerts warning consumers about weight-loss products sold on the Internet. The FDA tested some and found they contained dangerously high levels of sibutramine, a substance used in some weight-loss products but not Alli. The ingredient has been banned in some countries, and the FDA as recently as this month has faced petitions that the substance also be banned in the U.S.
The Justice Department said undercover agents flew to an unidentified country other than the U.S. or China to meet with Mr. Zhou. The department said they discussed his manufacturing capabilities in depth. The department said Mr. Zhou "promised to fix defects" in the counterfeit Alli that had been previously shipped. The defects were those that had been described in the FDA alerts to the public.
This case further highlights the effectiveness of the internet in finding and catching counterfeit goods.
