Counterfeit drugs and the online pharmaceutical trade, a threat to public safety

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are a serious and ever-growing threat to public safety. Monitoring the trade is difficult, resulting in the precise scale of the problem being unknown, however evidence shows that it is not just lifestyle drugs that are targeted nowadays. Adverse health problems, including fatalities, have resulted from consumers self-medicating with counterfeit products. Without efforts to enhance the public's knowledge, the problem will continue to persist. The internet is facilitating the trade by providing counterfeiters with a large consumer base and limited risks. The dark net within it allows for anonymous transactions between manufacturer, distributer and consumer. While some online pharmacies are legitimate, there are a growing number of those that are unverified which sell dangerous counterfeit products. Both the packaging and medication are becoming increasingly sophisticated, making it difficult for consumers and law enforcement to identify them without chemical analysis. Counterfeit batches have also been detected in established legal trade routes whereby they are able to, if undetected, end up in high street pharmacies and hospitals. Multiple organisations have set up worldwide operations to dismantle the trade however this is a complex and evolving problem that without significant changes to legislation may never be fully

ESSAYS ON DECEPTIVE COUNTERFEITS IN SUPPLY CHAINS: A BEHAVORIAL PERSPECTIVE

This dissertation is comprised of three essays intended to contribute to the operations management discipline, specifically within supply chain management. The first essay provides a research agenda for studying deceptive product counterfeits, which are products that have been manufactured and/or distributed and sold by an entity in violation of another’s intellectual property rights and intentionally misrepresented by the seller as the genuine article. The proliferation of counterfeits into legitimate supply chains presents quality, health and safety and cost concerns for nearly all industries. We identify antecedents of vulnerability to deceptive counterfeits for firms and their supply chain partners using Situational Crime Prevention Theory and Normal Accident Theory. Vulnerability to counterfeiting has negative performance impacts for the firm, its customers and society. We propose using the Six Ts of Supply Chain Quality Management (Roth, Tsay, Pullman and Gray, 2008) as an approach to select effective strategies to mitigate these impacts. Essay Two serves as an initial effort to understand how counterfeits can enter supply chains. In this essay, we test whether purchasing specialists can serve as effective guardians of the supply chain using a scenario based role playing experiment. We explore if buyers can detect signals of counterfeits in proposals and successfully avoid the counterfeit supplier in the decision process. We additionally examine whether time constraints and workload pressure detracts from the ability to successfully process signals and avoid the counterfeit. We find that the buyers can successfully detect counterfeit signals and avoid the counterfeit in the selection decision, but don’t find support for time constraints and workload pressure effects. The final contribution of this dissertation is a methodological essay that explores the effect of time pressure on decision making by using a combination of perceived time pressure and objective measures of time spent in the decision process to determine if time pressure affects the quality of the decision making in a supplier selection decision. We find that time constraints and perceived time pressure are related constructs that negatively affect decision quality in a supplier selection decision

An Empirical Analysis to Control Product Counterfeiting in the Automotive Industry\u27s Supply Chains in Pakistan

The counterfeits pose significant health and safety threat to consumers. The quality image of firms is vulnerable to the damage caused by the expanding flow of counterfeit products in today’s global supply chains. The counterfeiting markets are swelling due to globalization and customers’ willingness to buy counterfeits, fueling illicit activities to explode further. Buyers look for the original parts are deceived by the false (deceptive) signals’ communication. The counterfeiting market has become a multi-billion industry but lacks detailed insights into the supply side of counterfeiting (deceptive side). The study aims to investigate and assess the relationship between the anti-counterfeiting strategies and improvement in the firm’s supply performance within the internal and external supply chain quality management context in the auto-parts industry’s supply chains in Pakistan

Illicit trade in Ireland: uncovering the cost to the Irish economy.

Although frequently thought of as a victimless crime, illicit trade has a significant impact on the Irish economy. The objective of this report is to provide a detailed assessment of illicit trade in Ireland across a select number of sectors, namely fuel, tobacco, alcohol, digital media and pharmaceuticals. With regard to each of these sectors, the report seeks to understand the impacts, identify key drivers behind these illicit trades, and where possible, quantifies the losses to the economy. Ultimately this report proposes an integrated approach to tackling the problem of illicit trade in Ireland

Money for crime and money from crime: financing crime and laundering crime proceeds

This article summarises briefly what is known internationally about how ‘organised crimes’ are financed and how this differs from the financing of licit businesses. It shows how illicit financing might and does operate, noting that a key issue is the social capital of offenders and their access to illicit finance which ironically, may be easier if controls make it harder to launder money. It then reviews international evidence on how proceeds of crime are laundered, concluding with an examination of the implications of these observations for the study of organised crime and the effects of anti-money laundering efforts. In money laundering cases internationally, the most commonly prosecuted cases are not complicated. This is not evidence that there are no complicated cases, since the proportion of crime proceeds and crime financing that have been subjected to serious investigation is modest. There is a core contradiction between general economic policy pushed hard multilaterally for liberalisation of financial flows and a crime control policy intent on hampering them. No-one could rationally think that AML controls in general or financial investigation in particular will ‘solve’ organised crime completely or eliminate high-level offending: for there even to be a chance to achieve that, there would need to be a step change in transparency and effective action against high-level corruption along all possible supply chains. However more action (not just legislation) on these could facilitate interventions against the more harmful individuals, networks and crime enablers. The less complex financial activities of local drug-dealing gangs can be intervened against, without needing international cooperation or familiarity with sophisticated money laundering typologies

IN BLOCKCHAIN WE TRUST? The examination of an anti-counterfeiting solution

Product Counterfeiting is deemed a major and pertinent threat to the global luxury sector. The entanglement of luxury and counterfeiting has evolved into a complex problem for the modern milieu. This aim of exploring this topic as social phenomena seeks to expose the shadow economy of counterfeiting, unpack issues of intellectual property and the threat posed through the integration and adoption of blockchain technology as an anticounterfeiting solution and high trust system of exchange. Luxury counterfeited brands offers a perspective which considers the complexities surrounding fashion consumption, the globalisation of brands, brand culture, and the connotations of luxury today, including its place in the criminological sphere. Academics call for studies pertaining to the under explored area of counterfeited luxury goods owing to a rise in the grey and copycat markets further catalysed by recent market demand for second-hand luxury goods (Wall and Large, 2010; Wang et al., 2020). The consumption of such goods not only pilfers innovation and affects industry but is entwined with a mirrored underworld of counterfeit production and consumption which has given rise to more sinister activities with linkages to organized crime, modern slavery, and terrorist activities. Against this backdrop, this research will seek to achieve the following research aims: A. Examine product counterfeiting of luxury goods as a social phenomenon a. Critically examine the socio-economic, historical, and cultural implications of counterfeiting. b. How are issues of copyright and trademark infringement impacting counterfeiters? B. Examine Blockchain as an anti-counterfeiting solution and its enhancement of supply chain management. a. Can Blockchain-based supply chains enable transparency and product traceability? i. Can the integration of a blockchain solve issues of provenance? ii. What is the value of blockchain-enabled services? iii. Identify threats to adoption and regulation of blockchain technologies in the UK. b. Can Blockchain enable a high-trust ecosystem? i. Does block-tech ensure accountability and create trust? ii. Examine the proposition that non-fungible tokens can create unprecedented models of ownership allowing for product circularity. The study seeks to unveil the shadow industry of counterfeiting’s impact and to assess blockchain technologies merit as an anti-counterfeiting solution via an examination of issues existing in luxury goods supply chains. Thomas’ (2019) description of fractured supply chains and the utilisation of sub-contracting via offshore producers are central to establishing a case for enterprise blockchain-based solutions to combat counterfeiting and to create transparent supply chains. To achieve the above-mentioned aims, this literature review will highlight the impact of product counterfeiting through the provision of an ontological examination of counterfeiting with a particular focus on luxury goods. The penultimate section offers a sociological examination of the luxury goods industry, anticounterfeiting measures and addresses inherent issues overlooked in studies regarding counterfeiting of luxury and their interrelationship. The final section of the literary review will provide a theoretical examination of blockchain technology (block-tech) within an epistemological framework to assess block-tech capability to enhance supply chains to foster transparent and traceable chains, and, in doing so ameliorate the effects and risks of counterfeiting within the global luxury goods industry. As this research is exploratory in nature, it will undertake a qualitative methodological approach, investigated through elite interviews and ethnographic data collection. The study will address this surge in the demand for counterfeit luxury goods and its accumulation into a trillion-dollar generating industry, as a social and criminological phenomenon. The researcher will examine issues pertaining to, and solutions of traceability, authentication, and supply chain provenance. In fulfilling the research objectives, it is imperative to identify current anti-counterfeiting strategies’ effectiveness through a critical and comparative examination, with a focus on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) known as Blockchain. Henceforth, blockchain will be referenced throughout as ‘block-tech’ and otherwise ‘the technology’ or ‘blockchain technology’, or on its own ‘blockchain’. Initial findings reveal the emergence of conscious consumers, a rise in re-commerce of luxury goods and a shift toward circularity within a microcosm of the industry

Exploring (anti-) counterfeiting management: Conceptual foundations and empirical examination

Die Forschungsfragen wurden in neun einzelnen Beiträgen untersucht. Der Forschungsfrage 1 („Marken- und Produktpiraterie“) wurde in zwei Beiträgen nachgegangen. Beitrag 1 stellt die relevanten Dimensionen der Betrachtung von Fälschungen dar. In Beitrag 2 erfolgt eine umfassende Auseinandersetzung mit den definitorischen Grundlagen, den Gründen für die Zunahme der Fälschungen sowie den daraus entstehenden Schäden zur Abgrenzung, Systematisierung und Bewertung der Thematik. Die Forschungsfragen 2 („Schutzmanagement“, ACM) und 3 („Fälschungsmanagement“, CM) werden sowohl mit konzeptionellen als auch qualitativ und quantitativ empirischen Beiträgen bearbeitet. Zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfrage 2 enthält die kumulative Dissertation vier Beiträge. In Beitrag 3 werden Grundlagen und Inhalte eines unternehmerischen Schutzsystems erarbeitet. Beitrag 4 komplettiert dieses Thema durch eine umfangreiche Analyse relevanter Schutzinstrumente. Die Erklärungsinhalte des ressourcen- bzw. kompetenzbasierten Ansatzes zur Ableitung einer prozessorientierten Sichtweise auf ACM beinhaltet Beitrag 5. Mittels einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse wird das Wissen aus Experteninterviews analysiert und ein Konstrukt zur Ableitung der unternehmerischen Schutzkompetenz vorgestellt. In Beitrag 6 erfolgen die Verfeinerung des Modells und die finale Untersuchung von ACM auf Basis eines konfigurationsorientierten Mixed-Methods Ansatzes zur inhalts- sowie cluster- und varianzanalytischen Bestimmung von Schützerklassen und -konfigurationen. Wichtige Elemente sind Kompetenzen, die verfolgten Strategien bzw. eingesetzten Instrumenten sowie die Evaluierung des Erfolgs auf Grundlage von Fragebogendaten. Zur Behandlung von Forschungsfrage 3 sind drei Beiträge er¬stellt worden. Beitrag 7 beschäftigt sich mit dem bisher stark vernachlässigten Bereich CM. In diesem wird zur Annäherung an die Thematik der aktuelle Stand der Forschung zu Fälschertypen, relevanten Strategien sowie taktischen Maßnahmen aufgearbeitet und mit Expertenwissen angereichert. In Beitrag 8 erfolgen eine managementorientierte Aufbereitung der Fälscherthematik und eine qualitative Inhaltsanalyse zur Identifikation von Strategien und Instrumenten. Darüber hinaus wird eine kompetenzbasierte Methodik zur Bewertung von Fälschern erarbeitet. Beitrag 9 schließt die Untersuchung der Fälscherseite analog zu Beitrag 6 ab

The theft of medicines in the EU. Key results of the MEDI-THEFT project about the current status of the theft of medicines in the EU and the most relevant and common criminals’ modi operandi.

This report is an extract from the deliverable D2.1 of the project MEDITHEFT. This report aims at providing an update on the current status of theft of medicines and medical devices in the EU including: (a) the identification and analysis of the main criminal schemes adopted by criminals to steal and re-sell pharmaceutical products (b) an analysis of the regulatory framework across EU Member State