Facts About Fake Medicines

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), working with law enforcement partners, seized almost 20 million doses of illegally traded medicines, with a potential street value of nearly £45 million, during 2025. 

As part of a crackdown on criminal profits, the MHRA’s financial investigators also denied criminals access to more than £2.1 million in assets linked to the illegal trade in medicines. 

Last year’s seizures included almost ten million doses of sedatives and sleeping pills, over four million doses of powerful painkillers, and more than four million doses of erectile dysfunction treatments. The MHRA’s Criminal Enforcement Unit (CEU) also seized more than 5,000 illegally traded GLP-1 products, commonly marketed as ‘weight loss’ medicines. The unit’s work included dismantling a major illicit manufacturing facility, making and distributing unlicensed weight-loss jabs, during a raid on a warehouse in Northampton in October. 

The CEU also worked with internet service providers to disrupt more than 1,500 websites and social media accounts illegally selling medical products to the public and removed more than 1,200 social media posts during the year.

Between April and November 2025, law enforcement, judicial, customs, medical and anti-doping authorities from 30 countries joined forces in Operation SHIELD VI. Europol coordinated this global effort targeting the trafficking of falsified/counterfeit and misused medicines, as well as illicit doping substances and food supplements. As in the previous operations, the 2025 edition was supported by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), Frontex, INTERPOL, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and national medicine agencies.

The operation focused on counterfeit and falsified medicines, the trafficking of anabolic-androgenic steroids and other doping substances, illegal food and sport supplements, and counterfeit sanitary products and medical devices. For regulatory and law enforcement authorities, the relationship between abnormal medication use, organised crime, and pharmaceutical trafficking remains a complex challenge.