Gang arrested for selling fake drugs to pensioners in Mallorca

POLICE raided a reproduction clinic in Palma as part of a nationwide swoop on crooked pharmacists selling fake drugs to pensioners at half the market price.

Guardia Civil estimate that they swindled a total of €230,000 from the Spanish tax man. Investigators are also looking for the roughly 200 people who would have used the drugs to see whether they have experienced health problems.

The crooks operated in clinics in Palma, Barcelona and Sevilla. They deliberately altered the recipes of crucial drugs sold to older people for a wide variety of problems to avoid paying extra to ensure their safety.

The altered drugs were then sold clandestinely at the clinics, with the fraudsters encouraging vulnerable old people that they were the real deal, just much cheaper.

Arrests were made in Operation Receton in all three cities yesterday. The pharmacists have been charged with forgery, crimes against public health and belonging to a criminal organisation.

Police have seized 775 batches of the fake drugs and closed down an entire pharmacy in Barcelona dedicated to their sale.

The Palma clinic also dispensed drugs and acted as a conduit between the manufacturers and those aggressively selling them to unsuspecting patients.