“Hanoi Police Seize Over 100 Tons of Fake Health Supplements and Medical Devices”

A recent investigation revealed that Tien directed Luong Thi Yen, the company accountant, to establish 17 companies, including six involved in importing goods and 11 in domestic distribution.

Initially, Tien imported various types of nutritional supplements manufactured abroad for distribution in Vietnam. However, as the market responded positively, and sales flourished, Tien conceived the idea of manufacturing and locally sourcing products while leveraging foreign brands for sales.

Notably, being a pharmacist himself, Tien formulated the products, sourced raw materials from within the country, and instructed unqualified staff to mix and encapsulate them. These products were then packaged and branded as foreign-origin dietary supplements and medical devices.

Simultaneously, the group maintained their import operations from foreign sources to retain their branding and appeal to consumers’ psychology, as well as to maintain legal documentation in case of inspections by authorities.

Tien procured domestic raw materials, which were then transferred to a fake goods manufacturing facility in Nhu Quynh Town (Van Lam District, Hung Yen Province), and established Au Viet Printing Company in Binh Xuyen (Vinh Phuc Province) to manufacture aluminum foil for blister packing. The bottles were ordered online, while the boxes were printed by printing facilities in Hanoi.

Printing Foreign-Language Boxes to Mimic Genuine Products

The information on the boxes was printed in foreign languages, indicating that the products originated from countries like Spain, France, and the USA. Tien and Nguyet hired individuals to apply the supplementary labels at the Hung Yen facility and their warehouse in Xa La, Ha Dong, Hanoi.

As law enforcement agencies intensified inspections of nutritional supplements and health products, the group discussed and agreed to disperse their goods to avoid scrutiny.

Specifically, Tien and Nguyet instructed their staff to hide the merchandise at Nguyet’s mother’s house in Binh Xuyen, Vinh Phuc; Yến’s mother’s house and their housekeeper’s residence in Bac Giang.

Upon detecting the criminal activities of this group, the Economic Police Department of Hanoi’s Public Security employed a range of operational measures to crack the case and simultaneously conducted urgent inspections at nearly 20 locations related to production, processing, storage, and consumption scattered across 20 provinces and cities nationwide.

The urgent inspections yielded 30 box-rib molds, 28,531 boxes of nutritional supplements, 34,822 bottles of nutritional supplements, 38,935 trays of nutritional supplement pills, 8,535 boxes of various types of boxes, nearly 100 boxes of labels, machinery, production lines, tools, raw materials, and more for producing counterfeit goods, equivalent to over 100 tons of nutritional supplements and medical devices (approximately over 100 different product codes).

The individuals involved confessed to manufacturing and trading counterfeit goods since 2020 and selling them at pharmacies and hospitals across the country.

Further investigations revealed that Tien and Nguyet’s companies had sold goods to hundreds of units, organizations, and individuals nationwide. Hanoi Police have recovered various types of product samples.

Based on the group’s actions, the Economic Police Department of Hanoi’s Public Security issued orders for temporary detention and arrest in urgent cases and decided to temporarily detain the following individuals: Pham Ngoc Tien, Luong Thi Yen, Nguyen Van Duc, Nguyen Thanh Tam, Nguyen Thanh Tam, and Nguyen Huu Tuan.