Thousands of illegal medicines seized in past year

Five people were arrested and thousands of packages of drugs confiscated by the authorities last year during Cyprus’ first-time participation in the annual European-wide campaign seeking to combat the use of medicine of dubious origin.

In an announcement on Wednesday, the police said that during the first participation of Cyprus in the seven-month campaign, coordinated by Europol, a total of 435 arrests were made across Europe, while medicine worth €168 million was confiscated and 24 criminal networks were dismantled.

Between April and October 2018, the local authorities in cooperation with the pharmaceutical services conducted a number of investigations in homes and other premises after evaluating information received by Europol.

A total of 20,000 packages of drugs were confiscated, while five people were arrested to facilitate with the investigations.

 

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