German authorities bust int'l trading network for illegal pharmaceuticals

Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-27 01:42:06|Editor: huaxia

BERLIN, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- After two years of international investigations, German authorities busted a worldwide network of dealers of illegal and unauthorized pharmaceuticals, the central office cybercrime Bavaria (ZCB) and the customs investigation office Munich announced on Monday.

Two Germans aged 35 and 38 years were suspected of illegal procurement of unauthorized or prescription pharmaceuticals in Asia, shipping the drugs via a "hub" in Singapore to customers worldwide, German authorities said in a statement.

Investigators believe that the suspects contacted their customers via several servers hosted in Iceland, which provided a large number of domains in different languages, according to the statement.

In the past five years, customs at the international mail distribution center at Frankfurt Airport alone had seized around 6,000 letters and packages, containing "various preparations" that were linked to the group of offenders, it noted.

The two German suspects had been arrested two weeks ago in Munich and had been in custody at the request of the local prosecutor general's office since, according to the statement. The 38-year-old main suspect already had a criminal record for similar offenses.

During the raid two weeks ago, three high-quality sports cars, expensive e-bikes and several luxury watches were seized and crypto currencies with a value of more than 600,000 euros (709,000 U.S. dollars) were tracked down. In total, assets worth 1.5 million euros were confiscated.

Investigations by German authorities were supported through cooperation with Spain, Britian, and the United States to "stop the trade with illegal pharmaceuticals." (1 euro = 1.18 U.S. dollars) Enditem

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