Spanish police have dismantled an organised group producing fake medicines designed to promote muscle development that were distributed in gyms. Five members of a criminal organisation were arrested in Murcia and Alicante, following evidence that Chinese expertise was used to construct a laboratory in Murcia that was being used to manufacture over 100 different types of medicine, with the capacity to produce over six million batches of counterfeit drugs per year.

‘The investigations were initiated as a result of data obtained from Operation Pértiga, in which 15 people, including former Olympic athletes, were arrested and a network that purchased prohibited substances was disarmed’, read a 22 May Police statement. ‘The information analysed took the agents to the region of Murcia where a person had acquired the remains of a clandestine laboratory dismantled at the end of 2015 as part of the framework of Operation Espuña.

In July 2015, Spanish police arrested 22 people as part of a coordinated investigation focusing on the Valencia region. Murcia lies about 230km south west of Valencia.

Police said that the purpose of the illegally manufactured drugs was to ‘enhance the muscle development of consumers’. They found that the drugs were distributed in the Valencia region through Levante gyms, and that two nutrition shops in Orihuela and Alcantarilla were collaborating, as they were run by two members of the organisation.