Wealthy businessman arrested for selling fake Viagra

Having brought a villa in Spain where he could sit back, adorned by his sparkling Rolex watch, sipping on Margaritas in the sun, Martin Hickman thought he had it made. But the ex-fake Viagra salesman hadn’t banked on the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer descending onto this seemingly idyllic scene and taking him to court on charges of counterfeiting medicine.

Pfizer have been clamping down hard on counterfeiters who are making around $75 billion profit every year by making unofficial versions of their own impotence treatment. Very often the contents of these pills include such unsavoury ingredients as sawdust and bird droppings. Needless to say these pills very rarely work.

Waging war on counterfeiters

To stem the rising number of false Viagra salespeople like Hickman, Pfizer has gone to the extreme measure of hiring former US customs officials, FBI agents, Turkish narcotics experts and police from Hong Kong. They are hitting counterfeiters where it hurts by tracking them to the source of their operations; often this means isolated warehouses where the illicit drugs are first manufactured and sometimes distributed from too.

In the UK Pfizer has sued at least seven counterfeiters other than Hickman, and in the US it has just settled its first law suit. The war against illegal Viagra will continue to be waged and as Jeff Kindler, Pfizer’s Chief Executive Officer says: “as long as there are people in the world who think they can make money by putting other people’s lives at risk, this is a clear and present danger.”

If you are considering purchasing Viagra online make sure that it is from a trustworthy source that is approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).