Source: O Estado de S. Paulo, 07/11/2008

The drugs sold in Brazil will leave the factory with a tracker that will allow you to track all your circulation to the consumer. The measure is part of a strategic plan, agreed yesterday between the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government, to combat drug piracy. The measure will be fully implemented in 2010, but in the next year pilot trackers will start to work experimentally.

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The idea is to dismantle gangs that operate in the sector in joint mega-operations of the Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) with the Federal and Highway Police. Piracy causes damage to patients, especially women and the elderly, and last year alone, the country lost more than R $ 30 billion in tax evasion and fraud. This year, the Highway Police seized 444,8 fake drugs, almost 40% more than the 322 units seized in 2007.

Brazil is the eighth market for pirated medicines, consuming between 5% and 10% of world production, according to a survey by the World Health Organization (WHO). The Ministry of Justice estimates that 30% of the medicines sold in the country originate from informality.

Everything in the sector is falsified: sexual stimulants, abortions, vaccines and black-stripe medicines. "Of all forms of piracy, this is the most perverse because people do not know that the product is fake and people are dying", warned the President of the National Council to Combat Piracy (CNCP), of the Ministry of Justice, Luiz Paulo Barreto .

Drug piracy is a heinous, unspeakable crime, with a sentence of up to 12 years in prison, with aggravating circumstances in the event of death or consequences for patients. The law also provides for the closure of the commercial establishment and the arrest in flagrante delicto of the business owner and the pharmacist.

The main international mafias that supply Brazil with fake drugs originate in Asian countries, such as Taiwan. At least 80% of the product enters the dry border of Brazil, especially with Uruguay and Paraguay, where local gangs are associated with Brazilians to supply the country. The rest enter through ports and airports.

Anvisa performed 40 operations in 2007. In one search, in Campo Grande (MS), it even found a counterfeit kit. Upon arriving at the source of the fraud, the inspectors found a pirate shed with the entire assembly line for widely circulating medicines. The kit included, in addition to the medicine processing plant, a printing press for stamps and boxes and the packaging and distribution sector. Everything produced in the dimensions of the original remedy, with perfect logos and gauges - only the remedy was nothing more than a placebo.