Here they offer TV 2 to make 20 million potentially deadly tablets

– Are you Erik? Asks a male voice on the phone.

– Yes, I’m Erik from Nicetrade, responds the TV 2 reporter.

TV crew 2 stands in front of a large iron gate in what seems like a pretty nice neighborhood. A doorman stares at us while we talk on the phone with those we are going to meet.

– They come to pick us up, we say in English to the man who is on duty outside.

But the goalkeeper doesn’t seem to understand a single word of what we say.

A few minutes pass, before we see three men walking towards us inside the door. They exchange a few words with the doorman before a metal door opens and they invite us in.

TV 2 has gone to China. Here we will try to delve into the criminal and very dangerous industry, in the country that produces by far the most counterfeit products in the world.

More than 80 percent of all counterfeit products in the world are produced in China and Hong Kong.

TV 2 knows from sources that this is how criminals operate: you buy fully or partially finished counterfeit products from manufacturers, eg. Eg in China. It is then shipped to Europe, where it is packaged or branded with the names of the products, before it is normally sold online and therefore, among other things, to Norwegian ports.

– Cynical and dangerous industry

According to the OECD, for example, infection control masks that make people sick, toys that harm children, breast milk substitutes for babies are produced completely without nutrients and drugs that kill.

No one knows how many people die each year as a result of fake drugs, but a study from the University of Edinburgh has looked at a very small group, namely children under the age of five with pneumonia. Here they estimate that between 72,000 and 169,000 die each year.

Before TV 2 arrived here in the great city of Qingdao in China, Norwegian lawyers working to prevent piracy told us about a cynical and dangerous industry.

– It is a cynical industry that exploits children and does not skimp on means to generate profit, Trygve M. Gravdahl told us when we told them where we were going and what we were going to do.

Big fake industry

Despite the fact that Qingdao has a population of just over nine million, it is surprisingly quiet. There are hardly any people on the streets. Everything is nice and clean. Can it really be as bad here as they tell us?

Going back to TV 2’s meeting with a pill maker.

Inside the gate it looks like a small park with trees and plants. There are landscaped gardens along what looks like rows of “row houses” – similar buildings.

After a few minutes we entered a building with a small office community. A few desks with computers, a couple of partitions and several shelves with different samples of tablets, accessories and powers testify that we have come to the right place.

A “fake” company was created

To understand the background for why the TV 2 crew has ended up in this particular office space in China, we have to go back a bit in time.

When we worked with the investigation of this case, it seemed unlikely that the culprits who produce and sell counterfeit drugs in China wanted to be interviewed by Norwegian journalists.

Therefore, the TV 2 team established the NiceTrade import company in the Brønnøysund Registry. Then we create a website and the Nicetrade.no online store.

The aim of this was to appear as Norwegian businessmen who wanted to get in touch with Chinese drug manufacturers.

Through Nicetrade.no, we also create a profile on Alibaba, one of the world’s largest business platforms for companies. On Alibaba, entrepreneurs from all over the world can meet. All you need to do is find what goods you want to produce, price, and geographic area.

By limiting the search geographically to Qingdao and using keywords such as “pills”, “tablets” and “drugs”, the TV 2 team has arranged several meetings with the pill makers.

The TV 2 crew is very careful about filming the negotiations. Only when we are in the meeting room do we secretly make recordings.

– it is illegal for us

Now, a fourth person has also entered the room. The way the other three treat him suggests that this is the boss.

The meeting begins with us handing the men a packet of paracetamol.

– This is paracetamol. It is sold all over Norway. We want to make copies of this, says the TV 2 crew.

– Yes, we can do that, men say.

We say that Paracet is not our product and that we do not have a recipe for what it contains.

– Can you make it with your ingredients?

– Yes. Other ingredients, Chinese, respond.

So they agree to copy Paracet with completely different ingredients, as long as we order 300,000 tablets or more. Then they can also copy the box, so that the product looks exactly like the real Paracet.

– So you can make 300,000 of this?

– Yes, and the package, the men reply.

– And send to Norway?

– Yes.

Own courts

The production of counterfeit drugs is illegal in China. However, the scale of the problem has led the country to establish its own courts that only deal with the illegal production and trade of counterfeit products.

And it is not only the Paracet company with which we are negotiating now that agrees to copy. We also ask them if they are willing to copy prescription drugs.

– That’s not what we do. It is illegal for us to manufacture such products, says one of the men, before immediately adding:

– But we can do it. This is the situation.

– What does that mean? You can do it? Yes or no?

The men speak a little Chinese before responding:

– Our boss says: “Yes, we can do it”, answers one of the men.

20 million pills

This company is far from the only one willing to break the law to make fake drugs for us. By using the Alibaba app again, the TV team 2 has arranged a meeting with another company, in a hotel lobby bar.

Here we also make secret recordings.

– Nice to meet you, say hello to one of the two women who know us.

They have included examples of the shape that tablets can take. But they can also produce identical copies of the package with Paracet that we have included.

– No problem. Tablets, carton and pill pack; we can do everything, says one of the women.

– Is this being done?

– Yes.

Eventually we will see videos of the factories where the drugs are produced.

In a row are large stacks of cardboard, ready to print packaging.

– We can do the packaging exactly as you as a customer want it, so it can be exactly like that, says the woman and picks up the package with Paracet.

The image above is taken from a TV 2 video sent by the company. It shows their other factory that produces the drugs themselves. Here, the pads are pressed at high speed.

But what the pills will contain of active ingredients, they will not give a clear answer.

– Will they be the same ingredients or other ingredients?

– Yes, other ingredients, answers the woman.

The smallest number that can be ordered is enough to cover the consumption of Paracet by the population of Oslo for half a year.

– The minimum order is 20 million tablets, says one of the women.

– Can you transport it to Norway?

– Yes, yes, we can send it to Norway, says one of the women.

At home in Norway, Customs detain a garbage bag of illegal drugs every day, and there is reason to believe that much of this is false. Random sampling by customs officials confirms this.

Mortal

However, customs officials can only stop part of the flow of life-threatening drugs on their way to Norwegian consumers. That worries the Norwegian Medicines Agency.

– Unfortunately, the problem is big. These are primarily products that you find and buy online, or outside the regulated drug distribution chain, says pharmaceutical inspector Line Saxegaard, continuing:

– People take risks when they buy that type of product, whether they buy it online or take a risk and buy on the street.

– Are there any examples of Norwegians who have died from this?

– Yes, there is, Saxegaard tells TV 2.

– There may be substances there that make you sick immediately, you may even die from it.

Advice to TV 2 journalists here

The Norwegian Medicines Agency believes that Norwegians who order medicines from illegal online stores are naive.

– You may not get the effect you think at all because it contains nothing. You can also get sick in the long term. That is, if you take a product that you don’t know what it contains, or that contains something different than what is in the package, and then over time you get sick, without understanding that the cause is the medicine you have taken, says Saxegaard. .

– There is a lot of money here in this industry and it is probably what governs people, and not that they risk someone’s health. It’s sad, says the drug inspector.

Do you have or know someone who has bought counterfeit drugs? Get in touch with the TV journalists 2.

You can also tip encrypted TV 2 journalists through the Signal app (iOS and Android) at the phone number +4792039515.