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A Canadian woman living in Hanley in the UK has been jailed for selling fake Viagra and Cialis pills and other medications.
Mother of two, Norma Ruutel-Glykys, aged 51, was living and working from a flat in Union Street, Hanley, when police raided it on March 3 2009. The trial of Ruutel-Glykys was heard at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday. Prosecutors claimed that 250,000 tablets, worth more than £1 million, were found at the flat where the Canadian was living. Initially denying any involvement Ruutel-Glykys claimed that she was doing a favour for a man she new. She further claimed that she new nothing about medicine. However in January this year she admitted that she was indeed handling processing of orders for a bogus website, which was selling the illegal medicines. Prosecuting for the Department of Health Kennedy Talbot commented "It was clearly a distribution centre for drugs, with distribution lists, customers' addresses, stamps and packaging material." The drugs included treatments for erectile dysfunction, which were not authorised to be sold anywhere in Britain or the EU, some of which have been identified as being fakes. Fake Viagra and Cialis drugs are seen as a low risk form of drug dealing. "The whole business undermines public confidence in medicines and damages the reputation and livelihood of pharmaceutical companies," said Kennedy Talbot. Amongst other discoveries Police found Valium tablets with a sale value of £25,665, Xanax tablets worth over £500, and over 9,000 tablets for erectile dysfunction with a value of £10,756. The defendant who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty on February 15 to two charges of possessing a Class C drug with intent to supply, possession of medical products with intent to place on the market without authorisation and selling prescription-only medicine between January 31 and March 4 last year In jailing Ruutel-Glykys for eight months, Judge Robert Trevor-Jones commented "There was potentially a very real danger of substantial harm to one or more of those users." |
