Two Chinese men jailed for illegal foreign online sales of mainland human growth hormones using repackaged labels
One man jailed for 10 years and another for 16 months after buying drugs legally on the mainland then reselling them with English labelling without a licence to foreign customers on the internet
PUBLISHED : Monday, 23 November, 2015, 4:42pm
UPDATED : Monday, 23 November, 2015, 4:48pm
Laura Zhou
[email protected]
Human growth hormone phials were bought legally on the mainland and then repackaged with English labelling and illegally sold abroad. File picture: SCMP Pictures
Two Chinese men lost their appeals against prison sentences after being convicted of selling more than 6.3 million yuan (HK$7.6 million) worth of human growth hormones online to customers abroad without a retail licence, and also creating English labelling for the drugs, mainland media reports.
One of the men, identified only by his surname, Huang, from Zhongshan, in Guangdong province, who was given the maximum jail term of 10 years and also fined 12.62 million yuan had his sentence upheld on Sunday by Zhongshan Intermediate Court, the New Express newspaper reported on Monday.
The other man, identified only by his surname, Liang had his 16-month jail sentence and 100,000 yuan fine also upheld by the same court.
Both men had appealed after being convicted and sentenced at an earlier trial at Zhongshan No 1 People’s Court, the report said.
They had argued that they deserved more lenient sentences because the drugs they had been selling were real human growth hormones, rather than a fake drugs.
According to China’s Drug Administration Law and a judicial interpretation from the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate it is against the law to manufacture fake labels and packaging for the sale of unlicensed drugs. the offence is considered just as serious as manufacturing counterfeit drugs.
The appeal hearing was told that the human growth hormone phials had been bought legally from a drug manufacturer based in Zhongshan and had then been repackaged, with specially created English-language labels, boxes and instruction leaflets, and sold abroad on the internet since late 2011.
The report did not explain whether or not Huang and Liang had sold the drugs using a company website they had set up for selling the drugs, and did not say to which countries the drugs had been sold.
Overseas internet customers paid for the drugs using an online payment system and the drugs were then posted abroad.
Initially Huang had been selling the drugs and producing the English labelling alone, but in March last year he hired Liang to help when the business became increasingly successful, the report said.
Liang was caught by police four months after starting work, which led to the arrest of Huang.
