Federal Customs and Border Protection officers in Louisville seized 15,000 Viagra pills, the agency announced in a press release on Thursday.
Thats a whole lot of erections.
According to the CBP, the pills were arriving from Hong Kong in 500 bottles and were headed to an individual in Brooklyn, [New York]. The agency said the retail value of the pills was over $1 million. While CBP said the bottles were labelled as manufactured in the United States, those claims are suspect as the pills were being imported from an industrial company in Hong Kong.
Smuggling medications can carry stiff penalties.
Despite the “international” in its name, Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport does not offer any commercial international flights. However, it is still a port of entry staffed by CBP officers, with cargo jets at UPS Worldport flying across the globe every day.
In their press release, the CBP warned that prescription meds manufactured in non-regulated foreign countries could contain dangerous ingredients and warned consumers against purchasing medications from online sources.
This is a dangerous game consumers are playing that could have disastrous results, said Lafonda D. Sutton-Burke, director of field operations at the CBP Chicago field office, in the statement. Consumers are purchasing these prescription medications from other countries thinking they are getting them at a discount, when in fact they are purchasing an inferior product with unregulated ingredients.
This article appears in March 1, 2023.