00:05Υπότιτλοι AUTHORWAVE
00:31From weight loss jabs to erectile dysfunction pills,
00:35the trade in medication and healthcare products
00:38bought online without prescription is booming.
00:40Cheaper alternatives or difficulty accessing treatments
00:43legitimately appear to be fueling demand,
00:46but sometimes the consequences can be fatal.
00:49Across Europe, a surge in counterfeit painkillers
00:52containing synthetic opioids known as nitazines
00:56has been linked to multiple deaths,
00:58including in the Netherlands.
01:05There's numerous cases of fake oxycodone
01:08that was found to not contain any oxycodone at all,
01:11but one of the many so-called superopioids,
01:16the nitazines, that can be hundreds,
01:18even thousands of times more potent than oxycodone.
01:21Nitazines are so dangerous for human health
01:23because they will have an effect on the central nervous system.
01:26You will have a respiratory depression,
01:29so it basically means that your breathing stops
01:31and that will lead to death within a few minutes.
01:35Stopping the online fraudsters has become a major challenge for authorities.
01:40As soon as one website disappears, another can pop up.
01:43You cannot sell, offer, dispense medicinal products
01:49when you're not a pharmacy.
01:50So the rules are clear.
01:51It's just that the enforcement doesn't keep pace
01:54with what's happening in reality.
01:57Because the medication looks like actual medication,
02:00sometimes even with the blister packages
02:02and the right color and all these kind of things,
02:04people think, OK, this is something that I can buy
02:08and take for whatever pain or symptom that I have.
02:13Experts say it's the potency of the synthetic opioids
02:16they're seeing in fake pills which makes them so dangerous.
02:20Synthetic opioids are much stronger than the classic morphine,
02:24500 times more potent than morphine,
02:26100 times more potent than fentanyl.
02:28So, yeah, depending on the doses, they can be quite lethal.
02:32I think many people assume
02:34that when something is available online, then it's legitimate.
02:38And many people probably don't realize
02:40that they're not dealing with a legitimate pharmacy,
02:43but just with a convincing-looking website.
02:52But it isn't just fake pharmaceuticals.
02:55Counterfeit luxury goods, electronics and tobacco products
02:58are just some of the many other goods traded online.
03:01technology, social media, online marketplaces.
03:05You go online, you find an online shop,
03:08you buy products, you think, wow, that's a bargain.
03:11While in fact, you can just buy bad quality
03:14or even harmful products that will be shipped to you
03:17thanks to this great technology.
03:19It's important to know that influencers
03:21do the promotion of counterfeactions,
03:24often without knowing,
03:25by using a new vocabulary.
03:27We're talking about dupes, we're talking about clones,
03:29we're talking about generics.
03:31All of these are products that are counterfeactions
03:33and that are punished from a legal point of view
03:35as counterfeactions,
03:37but that, finally, seem to be authorized
03:39because influencers use this new vocabulary.
03:42In terms of trends, we've all seen lately
03:45what e-commerce has done.
03:47It has essentially given fraudsters the capacity
03:50to bring these goods to our houses, to our doors,
03:53and controlling that is very, very difficult
03:56because every shipment is now one single parcel
04:00with one or two things in them,
04:01and that makes it difficult to detect,
04:04difficult to stop at the border when it comes in.
04:06The nature of the illicit trades now is often digital
04:09and even the payments can be, obviously,
04:13arranged thanks to the use of cryptocurrencies.
04:15This way, obviously, it's even harder for us
04:18and the law enforcement agencies
04:20to trace all the financial flows
04:22when the cryptocurrency is involved.
04:30The world is literally flooded with small packages.
04:35You have millions of packaging that are flooded in the world,
04:39and so the big difficulty is understanding
04:41in which packages you have something illicit.
04:44We see a tremendous growth in small parcels.
04:48Tremendous growth.
04:49Thousands of thousands of fast parcels
04:52containing counterfeit products.
04:55It's really difficult to detain them,
04:58to seize them, to spot fake goods in these fast parcels.
05:01They offer great possibilities for bad actors
05:05to smuggle products across the borders.
05:08Between 2016 and 2022,
05:11the global volume of postal packages
05:13increased by 150% from 64 billion to 161 billion units.
05:19in 2028, the volume is expected
05:22to reach 225 billion parcels.
05:29These goods move very fast now.
05:31I mean, they used to come by ship.
05:33Now they fly in.
05:34So it's a matter of hours
05:35before they come into the European Union.
05:38Intercepting that sort of traffic is complicated
05:41because, you know, you can't really get a grip
05:44on everything that is moving on
05:45through courier or through postal services.
05:52Today, buying a counterfeit
05:53is to finance criminal organizations.
05:56It's a crime that is not punished.
05:58It's the reason why criminal networks
06:00are coming to be positioned
06:02on this illicit activity.
06:04It's an activity that, in fact,
06:07has little risk and is very big.
06:09There is an increasing level of polycriminality
06:12in any criminal organization.
06:14They just shift from one market to another,
06:17from a product to another.
06:18at the same time,
06:19quite a low risk in terms of sanctions.
06:22Often the sanctions are not as high
06:24as in, for example,
06:25those that are seen for the drug trafficking.
06:30When you buy a cigarette in the black market,
06:33you simply do not know what you are breathing.
06:36When you buy a counterfeit medicine
06:39on the black market,
06:41you are lucky if there is no active ingredient within it.
06:46In the worst-case scenario,
06:48you have dangerous substances
06:50that make your own disease or condition even worse.
06:54Well, if people want to buy medicines online,
06:58I would say only buy medicines
06:59with a registered pharmaceutical company.
07:02And if it's not a registered pharmaceutical company,
07:04don't do it.
07:05The golden rule is,
07:06know exactly where you buy your medicinal products
07:11or order your medicinal products.
07:12We already have a logo,
07:14an EU logo,
07:15for online pharmacies
07:17that are authorized
07:19to dispense medicinal products to patients
07:22because you really do not want to take risks
07:24with your health and with your life.
07:26You cannot trust anything that you buy online
07:29in terms of medication
07:31if it's not from a legit pharmacy.
07:33So go to your doctor,
07:35even if it's a hard conversation to have,
07:37but if you buy medication online,
07:39you don't know what you're getting.
07:57you're getting ready.
