Police get case up in court against bogus Viagra seller

The general manager of a local private chemicals company faced court yesterday charged with selling thousands of bogus Viagra tablets to overseas customers over the Internet.

Yu Bohuai, 33, was arrested last June. The Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court held a first hearing of his case yesterday morning.

A judge in charge of the case told Shanghai Daily that Yu faced charges of illegal business operation, selling fake medicines and intellectual property infringement.

Yu, a university graduate and the general manager of Shanghai Daishang Chemicals Co, has been accused of selling fake Viagra tablets to overseas buyers in four deals that were completed in March 2006 and May last year.

He is alleged to have sold a total of 14,030 tablets, with the last transaction the largest, involving 8,000 pills.

The court heard Yu sold the tablets for US$1.20 or US$1.50 to his overseas clients.

He bought all the medicines from a man who went by the pseudonym "Xu Dong," who was believed to be connected with the underground source of the products, for five yuan (US$0.70) per pill, it is alleged.

Yu claimed he had never met his supplier in person and they were only in contact by phone after making deals with clients through e-mails, the court said.

''Xu Dong'' has been identified as Ou Yong by the police. Police have not revealed any further on their investigation into the underground production of the tablets.

Yu told the court that he had earned a net profit of about 50,000 yuan from the illegal sales.

''I didn't know I was breaking the criminal laws during the early deals,'' Yu told the court yesterday.

''I thought what I did would only lead to risks of punishment from the business administrators,'' he said.

The local food and drug control institute testified that samples of the pills Yu sold contained similar components to the authentic drugs produced and sold by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Limited.

Viagra is a registered prescribed medicine in China, used for treating erectile dysfunction.