
One of the guilty gang members had pretended he worked for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, who make the drug that is used to treat erectile dysfunction, but undercover investigators caught him out.
The fake Viagra had been made in India, China and Pakistan and then was sent to Britain, but a chance investigation by customs officers of a parcel containing 12,000 counterfeit Viagra tablets alerted police and led to a massive probe in three continents of the world.
Large consignments of the fake Viagra were shipped into the UK from the foreign factories, and the tablets were then repackaged and sold over the Internet to customers worldwide.