Officers from the Criminal Enforcement Unit (CEU) of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have\u00a0raided\u00a0two separate\u00a0premises\u00a0in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire\u00a0as part of an ongoing investigation into an organised criminal network involved in the manufacture and sale of unlicensed\u00a0weight loss\u00a0medicines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the operation, MHRA officers, supported by Lincolnshire Police, Immigration Enforcement and Lincolnshire Trading Standards, seized almost 2,000 doses of unauthorised weight loss medicines awaiting dispatch to customers, alongside manufacturing equipment, suspected pharmaceutical ingredients, packaging, and commercial vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0two\u00a0premises searched,\u00a0a farm\u00a0near Sleaford\u00a0and\u00a0a\u00a0residential\u00a0address in Grantham, are believed to have been used for\u00a0the\u00a0manufacture and distribution of unlicensed weight loss medicines, including retatrutide\u00a0and tirzepatide, as well as peptide products.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The operation follows\u00a0a landmark raid in October 2025<\/a>, in which\u00a0CEU\u00a0officers dismantled the UK\u2019s first illicit weight loss medicine manufacturing facility in Northampton, believed to be the largest single seizure of trafficked weight loss medicines ever recorded by a law enforcement agency worldwide.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr Zubir Ahmed, Health Innovation and Patient Safety Minister, said:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis week\u2019s raids have taken dangerous, unregulated products off our streets. These medicines are made with no regard for safety and pose serious risks. We will not allow criminals to profit by exploiting people looking for help with their weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDo not buy weight-loss medicines from unregulated sources. Safe, effective, licensed treatments can make a real difference for those who need them – but they must come from a registered pharmacy, with a valid prescription.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are also investing \u00a325 million in better weight loss support programmes and referrals to weight loss jabs from GPs – where clinically appropriate – as part of our shift from sickness to prevention.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Andy Morling, Head of the MHRA\u2019s Criminal Enforcement Unit, said:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe message\u00a0from today\u00a0to\u00a0those\u00a0illegally trading in medicines\u00a0could not be clearer: we are coming for you. Our raid in October was just the start. Every\u00a0illegal product\u00a0and every\u00a0piece of manufacturing equipment\u00a0we\u00a0seize\u00a0disrupts\u00a0these criminal networks and\u00a0brings us closer to dismantling\u00a0them entirely. We\u00a0will stop at nothing to\u00a0protect the public and\u00a0hold criminals to account for the harm they are knowingly doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful to our partners in Lincolnshire Police, Immigration Enforcement and Lincolnshire Trading Standards for their support to today\u2019s operation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n DI Samuel Ward, of Lincolnshire Police\u2019s Intelligence Development Unit said:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis operation demonstrates the power of intelligence and multiagency work. Lincolnshire Police was proud to play its part in supporting the MHRA, alongside our partners at Trading Standards and Immigration Enforcement, to identify, plan, and execute a warrant has caused a serious disruption to a group profiting from unregulated weight loss drugs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe production and sale of counterfeit weight\u2011loss drugs is incredibly dangerous. These substances are unregulated and pose a real risk to anyone who uses them. Criminal groups exploiting vulnerable people for profit have no place in our communities, and we will continue to work relentlessly with our partners to dismantle these operations and keep the public safe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The MHRA\u2019s\u00a0#FakeMeds website<\/a>\u00a0offers helpful guidance and advice for staying safe when buying medicines online.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anyone who suspects they are having a side effect from a medicine is encouraged to talk to their doctor, pharmacist or nurse and report it directly to the\u00a0MHRA Yellow Card scheme<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Notes to editors<\/p>\n The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)\u202fis responsible for\u202fregulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK by ensuring they work and are acceptably safe. All our work is underpinned by robust and fact-based judgements to ensure that the benefits justify any risks.
\n The Criminal Enforcement Unit (CEU) is the MHRA\u2019s in-house law enforcement function, leading the Agency\u2019s response to medicines crime. Its strategic mission is to protect the public,\u202fmaintain\u202fconfidence in regulation and uphold the rule of law by preventing offending where it can, disrupting offending where it cannot, and bringing offenders to justice where it should. It uses the full range of its powers and capabilities, including intelligence analysis, online disruption, covert\u202ftechniques,\u202fand asset recovery to tackle criminal threats to the UK public, working closely with the police and law enforcement agencies in the UK and overseas.
\n The MHRA\u2019s Accredited Financial Investigators are authorised by the National Crime Agency under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA). They support investigations by tracing, freezing, and confiscating assets linked to crime, including money laundering and the illegal supply of medicines. Their work includes seizing cash, valuable items, and freezing bank accounts or cryptocurrency suspected of criminal origins. The Home Office\u2019s Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS) allows a proportion of the proceeds of crime recovered under POCA, to be redistributed to agencies involved in the asset recovery process.\u202f\u00a0
\n The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care.
\n For media enquiries, please contact the\u202fnewscentre@mhra.gov.uk<\/a>, or call on 020 3080 7651.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officers from the Criminal Enforcement Unit (CEU) of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have\u00a0raided\u00a0two separate\u00a0premises\u00a0in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,377],"class_list":["post-498920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}