Egyptian customs officers have seized 85,200 Viagra-like anti-impotence pills at Cairo airport smuggled in from Syria, in the country's largest ever such haul, Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday.
The trafficker admitted trying to smuggle the pills, with a market price of about two million Egyptian pounds (about 500,000 dollars), on behalf of a Syrian living in Alexandria on Egypt's Mediterranean coast, the paper said, cited by AFP.
People caught trying to dodge customs duties on the imported pills, which are not illegal in Egypt, are usually fined around one quarter of the trading value of the product but not taken to court, a customs official told the agency.
Large quantities of the Syrian-made anti-impotence pills, called Vega and colored blue like Viagra, are regularly discovered in the baggage of travelers arriving in Cairo from Damascus.
The Syrian pills are sold for around one dollar each in Syria while fetching around six dollars in Egypt. Viagra, which was authorized for sale in Egypt in late 1999, sells for much more.
According to a study published in February, carried out by a number of Pharmaceutical companies and senior pharmacists in Egypt revealed that 7.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.9b approximately) are spent each year by Egyptian citizens on the male impotence treatment pills.
According to the study results, these sums will increase to nine billion pounds due to the decline of the pound against the dollar.
The study also indicated that the average individual monthly consumption of the medicine ranges between five to seven tablets. The number of tablets smuggled annually into the country amounts to 40 millions with the price of each tablet ranging between 40 and 50 pounds.
Al Ahram daily newspaper reported that the study, which included more than 40 pharmacists and a large number of venereal diseases and skin specialists throughout the country, revealed that this type of illegal business is an organized commercial operation carried out by a number of smugglers. These smugglers dictate the selling price burdening the government with seven and a half billion pounds every year.
The daily said that these operations are considered to be the worst types of smuggling because they erode the family budget. The average monthly family expenditure on Viagra ranges between 180-300 pounds.
The Egyptian health ministry authorized the sale of Viagra on prescription in January, after banning it back in May 1998.
Viagra is manufactured by Pfizer, one of the biggest drug makers in the world, with annual sales of nearly 30 billion dollars (32 billion euros) -- Albawaba.com
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