INTERPOL seizes $65M in fake drugs, arrests 769 in largest-ever global crackdown

INTERPOL has arrested 769 people and seized illegal medicine worth USD 65 million in a global operation against pharmaceutical trafficking, according to an INTERPOL press release published on Thursday, highlighting the alarming scale of global trade in counterfeit drugs.

Authorities confiscated 50.4 million doses of medicine and arrested 123 criminal gangs in relation to Operation Pangea which took place between December 2024 and May 2025. The seizures and arrests are the largest in the operation’s 17-year history.

“The rapid growth of online platforms has made it easier for these unsafe drugs to reach people as well as opening new opportunities for criminal networks to exploit” said David Caunter, Director of Organized and Emerging Crime at INTERPOL.

Anti-anxiety drugs, medications for Parkinson’s disease, and erectile dysfunction medicines were the most common products found by the authorities, the press release stated.

93% of the illegal medicines lacked regulatory approvals from national health authorities. The remaining 7% were either counterfeit or misbranded products.

“Fake and unapproved medications are a serious risk to public health. They can include dangerous or illegal ingredients potentially resulting in severe illness, or even death, Caunter said.

In Africa, a lack of access to healthcare has fuelled a deadly spike in medicine trafficking. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime fake medicines kill almost 500,000 sub-Saharan Africans a year including 169,271 deaths linked to illegal antibiotics used to treat pneumonia in children.

Addressing illegal medical products is challenging due to limited resources and infrastructure in many regions, especially in low- and middle-income countries, according to the WHO, as producers are using increasingly sophisticated methods to make detection difficult.

"The rise of online purchases and informal markets makes it hard to monitor and control the distribution of these products", the organisation stated.

In Burkina Faso, INTERPOL discovered 816,000 tablets including painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs hidden in vehicles.

Operation Pangea spanned 90 different countries including 18 countries in Africa: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Rep. of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Zimbabwe.