Two crooked businessmen who were caught with more than £5m worth of counterfeit drugs including Viagra and steroids have been jailed.
Asif Patel, 42, and Naushad Gaffar, 53, specialised in importing medicines for erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation from the Indian subcontinent. They were arrested in April 2015 following a nine-month investigation by the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
In one of the largest ever seizures of its kind, officials confiscated more than 1.6m doses of illicit medicines and 46,000 doses of class C drugs from storage units in south London.
Prosecutor Peter Ratliff told Southwark Crown Court: "There were over 90 different medicinal products, applications ranging from premature ejaculation to depression.
"The significant majority of medicinal products in this case were for treating problems of a sexual nature, many are similar to Viagra. 'The supply of unauthorised medicines is dangerous, they have not been subject to UK or EU safety regulations.
"Both defendants held leading roles, involved in directing, organising and selling on a commercial scale and appear to have had close links to the original source of the drugs."
