Pharmacists 'ruined their reputation' for producing fake drugs

Secrets in the functional food factory of a male pharmacist

Vu Tien (born in 1986, residing in Hai Duong city, Hai Duong province) was prosecuted by the People's Procuracy of Nghe An province and brought to court for trial for the crime of "Production of counterfeit medicines,disease prevention medicine”. In relation to this case, Bui Quy Phuc (born in 1986, residing in Hai Duong city) was prosecuted for “Producing and trading in counterfeit goods that are medicines for treatment and prevention of diseases”, Nguyen Huu Tien (born in 1983, residing in Hoang Mai town, Nghe An) was prosecuted for “Buying and trading in counterfeit goods that are medicines for treatment and prevention of diseases”.

Vu Tien is a pharmacist, his wife is a nurse. Working in the pharmaceutical industry, Tien realized that the functional food market was easy to do business in, so he completed procedures to open a candy vitamin factory. The factory operated for a short time before the Covid-19 epidemic broke out, so operations were limited while the capital had not been recovered. In July 2020, the epidemic temporarily subsided, but the market had not yet recovered because business and transportation activities were still being strictly controlled. "Sleepy again, meeting a bamboo mat", Tien was ordered by Bui Quy Phuc to produce cough medicine according to the sample to sell online. Phuc would take care of the raw materials, and at the same time promised to pay Tien 14-17 million VND in wages.

Having experience in producing cough drops, Tien used available materials to produce 50 tablets according to Phuc's sample for him to "approve". Because the sample tablet Tien produced had a slightly lighter color than the sample tablet, Phuc brought 10 bottles of Tera antibiotics and asked Tien to grind them and mix them into the ingredients. This time, the product had a slightly darker color than the sample, Phuc asked Tien to increase or decrease the ratio of ingredients to produce a product that was most similar to the sample tablet. Vu Tien used 2 kg of antibiotics, ground them finely, mixed with 50 kg of sugar, 100 kg of Lactose (a type of sugar found in milk and dairy products), 38 kg of calcium and 10 kg of Brometain (an enzyme). The entire mixture went through the process of mixing, humidifying, grinding, drying, mixing lubricant powder and putting it into the tablet press, producing the finished product as required by Phuc.

3 defendants in the fake cough medicine production and trading ring. Photo: Nhu Binh

From the above raw materials, after 5 days of production, Vu Tien made 100 kg of pills that he recognized as similar to the Phacoter cough medicine produced and sold on the market by Central Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company 1.

Receiving the goods from Tien, Bui Duy Phuc brought them back, packed them in plastic bottles and labeled them with the fake Phacoter medicine that he had prepared. Phuc took these bottles of medicine and packed them in cardboard boxes (264 bottles in one box), transported them to Nghe An and delivered them to Nguyen Huu Tien to sell according to a plan that had been discussed and agreed upon in advance.

In August 2020, Nguyen Huu Tien received 27 boxes of medicine from Bui Duy Phuc and transferred 180 million VND to this person, then brought them to pharmacies in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Hanoi and Ha Giang to introduce. Each bottle of medicine Phuc sold to Tien for 45,000 VND, Tien offered it to pharmacies for 55,000 VND, and Tien did not know how much the pharmacies sold it to customers.

Not yet benefited but already in jail

During the sale, pharmacies received complaints from customers that the medicine boxes were missing pills and did not taste as bitter as the medicine they had previously used. Some pharmacies contacted Huu Tien to return the goods. Huu Tien asked Phuc to take back the medicine and refund him, but Phuc said he would adjust the bitter taste of the medicine to exchange for the medicine that the stores complained about. On August 21, 2020, when Phuc brought the medicine to exchange for Huu Tien, he was discovered by the Hoang Mai Town Police.

The police investigation agency seized a total of 37 cardboard boxes containing 9,440 bottles of fake Phacoter medicine produced and traded by Phuc's group. Explaining the reason for counterfeiting fake Phacoter medicine, Bui Quy Phuc said that this medicine is easy to counterfeit from the design of the pill to the box and label.

Defendant Vu Tien at trial. Photo: Nhu Binh

The total amount of fake Phacoter drugs that Bui Quy Phuc, Vu Tien and Nguyen Huu Tien produced and sold had a market value of more than 680 million VND. The investigation agency determined that in this case, Bui Quy Phuc illegally profited more than 154 million VND, and Nguyen Huu Tien profited more than 100 million VND.

At the first instance trial, while Vu Tien honestly confessed his crime, Bui Quy Phuc and Nguyen Huu Tien appeared evasive and insincere. Phuc claimed that he was not the mastermind in the case, but only followed the instructions of another man, but could not provide information for the authorities to verify the identity and background of this man. Meanwhile, Nguyen Huu Tien affirmed that he did not know that the medicine was fake, thinking that Phuc had a cheap source of goods so he sold it to make a profit. Tien himself did not have any knowledge of medicine, the title "pharmacist" that Tien introduced to pharmacies was also self-proclaimed.

However, during the investigation and public debate at the trial, the panel of judges determined that the Nghe An Provincial People's Procuracy's prosecution of the defendants for the above crimes was correct in terms of the person, the crime, and the law.

The representative of Central Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company 1 present at the trial said that the company's damage from the defendants' production and trade of counterfeit goods was extremely large. According to this representative, the revenue from this product in 2019 was nearly 30 billion VND. After the case of producing and trading counterfeit drugs was discovered, the company's brand, reputation and revenue were seriously affected because of the false reputation of poor quality products.

The mother of defendant Vu Tien hopes that the panel of judges will consider and reduce the sentence for her son. According to her, Tien committed the crime due to business losses, the impact of the pandemic, and the pressure to pay debts. In this case, Tien has not benefited anything. Bui Quy Phuc promised to pay 14-17 million VND in wages, but Phuc has only given 10 million VND to buy raw materials for production and has not paid the wages.

Considering the role, nature and level of crime of each defendant in the case, the panel sentenced Bui Quy Phuc to 6 years and 6 months in prison; defendant Vu Tien to 6 years in prison; and Nguyen Huu Tien to 5 years and 6 months in prison. The court also ordered the defendants to jointly compensate Central Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company 1 and the pharmacies for the damages caused by the production and sale of these counterfeit drugs.