A businessman who created a multi-million pound business empire selling fake Viagra over the internet is today being sentenced. Martin Hickman, 49, had a website called MSH World Traders through which he manipulated the trust of men seeking medication for erectile dysfunction. He funded a millionaire’s lifestyle, with a house in Marbella and a £2.5m Chelsea apartment on the river through the sales of fake medication made in India but designed to look like the real thing.
Hickman was charged with six counts, including dealing in fake and unlicensed medications and laundering £1.4m, after the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency grew suspicious of his website after a routine sweep and launched an investigation. They found that as well as offering herbal aids and sex toys, Mr. Hickman was selling medications that had no license and counterfeit drugs, as well as laundering money through bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Malta and the Isle of Man.
Martin Hickman had already been sent to jail for 10 months in 1998 for conspiring to trade in steroids, which lead to his being declared bankrupt. Despite this, in 2003 he set up his new business, which also saw him being jailed earlier for 3 months after he ignored an injunction by the MHRA to shut it down.
The case has highlighted the dangers of dishonest businesses using the internet to sell medications that should only be prescribed by a doctor, which are usually counterfeit. Though there are a handful of clinics that operate legally, illegal operations can usually be identified by a lack of General Medical Council doctors doing the prescribing, websites registered outside the UK and medication not dispensed through a bricks-and-mortar UK pharmacy registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Please visit our consumer precautions page to help you identify sites that may be operation illegally.