Pudong New Area police have busted 28 online stores for selling fake medicine sourced from shops and illegal workshops outside the city, police said Tuesday.

The investigation began after a Pudong police officer surnamed Li sent a sample of the rheumatism medicine that his friend bought online to a local medicine admonition authority laboratory for testing. In April, the laboratory determined that the medicine was fake, according to a press release from the Pudong New Area Public Security Bureau.

Posing as a buyer, police bought and tested other kinds of medicine from the same store. All of them turned out to be fake.

Police arrested the store's owner, surnamed Chen, and discovered that his family owned five highly rated online shops that sold many kinds of fake medicine.

They found that Chen had sourced some of the medicine from other online shops. The medicines were produced by several workshops in Henan and Anhui provinces.

Most of the workshops were family-run. The families handled the entire production process and were willing to print any expiration date that their buyers wanted.

Police arrested 15 suspects, including Chen. It took them four months to trace the source of the fake medicine and raid the workshops.

Police warned consumers that it is riskier to buy medicine from online shops because of the low barrier to entry.

Global Times