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A worldwide police crackdown has seized a record $41-million haul of illegal pharmaceuticals being sold online.

Nearly half of the 9.9 million doses of illegal drugs were seized in the UK. The UK’s (MHRA) said the haul involved drugs for slimming, hair loss and erectile dysfunction. Worldwide, the haul included more potentially life-threatening counterfeits, such as antibiotics and antivirals, and drugs for breast cancer, asthma, diabetes and epilepsy.

The crackdown, called Pangea VI, was the sixth and biggest in an annual series organised by Interpol. It saw 99 countries netting nearly three times as many counterfeit pills as last year’s crackdown, with four times the value. Some 10,000 online pharmacies were shut down, and 58 people arrested, after via internet service providers, online payment systems, postal inspections and police raids.

Most of the UK haul was made up of “unlicensed” drugs. These can be authentic pills, repackaged to conceal the fact that they are outdated, stolen, made by a manufacturer other than the one on the label or were intended for sale in other countries.

Only 2.6 per cent of the 3.7 million pills seized in the UK in the latest sweep were , says the MHRA – mock-ups of commercial brands minus the active ingredients.

Threat from fakes

The World Health Organization fears 10 per cent of pharmaceuticals sold in poor countries may be such fakes, resulting in thousands of deaths from malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. But the problem is growing elsewhere, with medicines accounting for seized at European Union borders.

Last year the US , a cancer drug made by Roche, and earlier this year it uncovered of the same drug. The pills contained no active ingredient.

Last November the WHO for to fight the counterfeit drug trade, similar to treaties aimed at narcotics or human trafficking. But progress has been slow.