A Moscow businessman now in hiding faces criminal charges he sold counterfeit drugs online to millions of people worldwide. Igor Gusev and his company, Despmedia, have been charged with sending spam and supplying illegal medicines through the online affiliate Glavmed.com.
Gusev pleaded innocent to the charges, implicated Pavel Vrublevsky of the Internet payment service provider Chronopay, and disappeared, reports Securing Pharma. The fakes originated in India, according to a local newspaper.
Russia has been rising among the ranks of pharma spammers since China began its internal enforcement efforts. The Spamhouse Blocklist database ranks Russia third, after the U.S. and China. The U.S. is stepping up its enforcement efforts, as noted by the recent e-mail warning letter from the FDA Internet Pharmacy Task Force to Rx-promotion for supplying "unapproved and misbranded drugs" via 294 Internet sites.
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