A trafficking network in Romania has been uncovered, involving the illegal sale of prescription drugs intended for diabetics for individuals seeking rapid weight loss. One nurse, in particular, is accused of having falsified more than 700 prescriptions in one year.
The Prosecutor’s office of Bucharest announced on Wednesday that 13 individuals, including the administrator of a private clinic, one nurse, and 8 pharmacists had been detained for trafficking diabetes medicine. The investigation occurred after officials were informed that false information had been entered into a private clinic’s electronic prescription system, allowing pharmacists to pick up Ozempic, Rybelsus, Victoza, and Trulicity free of charge from 140 pharmacies in Bucharest and Ilfov county.
At the heart of the operation were several clinic employees, including nurses, who allegedly falsified prescriptions to obtain these drugs. Between January 2023 and January 2024, one nurse alone is accused of being responsible for forging over 700 prescriptions. After searching the homes of 17 individuals on May 28, 13 have been detained.
The employees of a private clinic and several pharmacies would have exploited the weaknesses of the country’s medical system, using the digital signatures and patient data that they had access to in order to generate fake prescriptions fully covered by the National Health Insurance as part of the National Diabetes Program.
Financial damage to Romania’s health budget is estimated at 1 million lei (approximately 218,000 dollars). In the meantime, the black market sale of these drugs, essential for regulating diabetics’ blood sugar levels, has created shortages in pharmacies.
In an interview with Adevărul, a Romanian daily newspaper based in Bucharest, Dr. Eduard Adamescu, a specialist in diabetes and nutritional diseases, said that while some people were able to buy the drugs online merely to lose weight, diabetics were forced to “temporarily stop their treatment.”
“Every pharmacist has an obligation when issuing a medicine to check the specialty of the prescribing doctor and the identity of the person picking up the medicine. These obligations have been grossly disregarded by pharmacists. These vulnerabilities were known and exploited accordingly by the defendants,” explains prosecutor Simona Anghel.
A “phenomenon totally out of control”
This case in Romania highlights a broader phenomenon that is now also affecting Europe, after North America. High demand for this drug has led to illegal activities that have emptied shelves and left diabetic patients in Europe without treatment. Dr. Adamescu stressed that the traffic of Ozempic is a “real trend, an almost common practice” that is “totally out of control.”
Other cases involve the sale of replica versions of diabetes drugs claiming to contain Ozempic, leading to patients in the United Kingdom and Austria being hospitalized, and reporting serious side effects such as hypoglycemic shock, vomiting, and even ending up in a coma.
But the discovery of this trafficking network in Romania, implicating individuals from multiple pharmacies, is a rare example of a sophisticated scheme that goes beyond advertising Ozempic replicas on social media.
A case with “one or two isolated pharmacists is unacceptable, but it can happen. But I’ve never heard of such a group of pharmacists involved in trafficking,” says Massy Bouhadoun, a pharmacist and co-founder of Ordosafe, an application that fights counterfeit prescriptions in France.
Side effects of semaglutide
Ozempic contains the active ingredient semaglutide which works by lowering blood-sugar levels and slowing down food leaving the stomach, causing users to feel fuller longer. Its soaring popularity, hitting the headlines for being celebrities’ secret weight loss drug, has caused global shortages.
However, if taken by non-diabetics and without proper medical supervision, the medicine can have side effects. Dr. Adamescu cautioned that drugs like Ozempic can cause “gastrointestinal disorders, nausea, vomiting, and bloating.” He added that individuals with certain medical histories, such as acute pancreatitis, should not take these medications without a prescription.
France’s national agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) issued a warning on the risks of Ozempic use for non-diabetics. The UK’s medicines safety regulator also urged the public not to buy drugs without a prescription.
But, when questioned by POLITICO about the lack of coordination between drug regulators enabling the black market to flourish, the European Medicines Agency said it had no responsibility for fake injections and that “dealing with falsified or counterfeit medicines is a matter for law enforcement.”
