Dr. George Patino, a 48 year old Mexican national was described by His Honour Judge Price QC at Kingston Crown Court on the 14th of October 2008 as a 'disgrace to his profession' after receiving a 3 year jail sentence for his part in the sale of a huge amount of fake Viagra tablets. In addition to the sentence, the judge ordered the confiscation of approximately £150,000, which has to be paid within 7 days. Failure to pay will result in Patino serving a further 3 years in custody. At the end of his sentence, Patino will be deported back to Mexico.

Patino was using the internet over a period of 9 months to sell fake tablets to unsuspecting members of the public with as many as 200 orders being placed each day earning him the online name of 'King of Viagra'. The orders would reach the recipient in brown bottles, different to the packaging used by the genuine manufacturer. Patino, along with the other members of the drug smuggling gang went to great lengths to conceal their true identities and evade detection by listing the return address for the product as a Finnish post box number.

Kingston Crown Court were read emails sent by disgruntled customers describing how the drugs they had been supplied with had caused side effects to the recipients including headaches and nausea with one customer even describing how the tablets had been coated in blue paint leading to their suspicions that the tablets were indeed fake.

Patino was brought to justice after his arrest in 2005 at Heathrow Airport where investigators from the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) confiscated his laptop and memory stick, which were found to contain more then 2000 digital photographs depicting various pharmaceutical products.

Investigators from the MHRA worked alongside the London Regional Asset Recovery Team to carry out a detailed financial investigation on Patino's finances to ensure that Patino did not benefit from his fraudulent internet business.

Detective Chief Inspector Sean Wanless, Head of London RART said "I'm extremely pleased with this excellent result which reflects the success of working in partnership with MHRA to bring this investigation to a successful conclusion."