Mexico Shuts Down 23 Pharmacies After US Warns of Fake Pills Laced With Fentanyl

Mexico conducted a four-day inspection raid across the Caribbean Coast six months after the US warned that Mexican pharmacies are selling fake pills laced with fentanyl. These fake pills are often sold as various legitimate medications like Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall and are often sold to American tourists.

According to the Associated Press, these raids targeted pharmacies around Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum. This resulted in the Mexican government shuttering 23 pharmacies around those areas.

After the raids, Mexico's Navy Department released a statement on Tuesday, saying that they found irregular sales at 23 of the 55 drug stores inspected. The department also confirmed that these pharmacies usually only offered these fake pills to tourists, even advertising that they sell these pills and also offering home delivery services for them.

In addition, the Mexican Navy Department also stated that it found outdated medications. These pharmacies also had no record of the supplier, as well as blank or unsigned prescription forms.

Back in March, the US State Department issued a travel warning to its citizens in Mexico that fake pills are being sold in legitimate pharmacies around Mexico.

UCLA First Sounded Alarm on Fentanyl-Laced Fake Pills Being Sold in Mexico

The University of California in Los Angeles first released a study back in January and found that "brick and mortar pharmacies in Northern Mexican tourist towns are selling counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine."

The study also found that these pharmacies usually target tourists from the United States, passing them off as "controlled substances such as Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall."

The study was mostly conducted around Northern Mexican tourist towns and in February, UCLA released additional findings that revealed that researchers found 68% of the 40 Mexican pharmacies they visited in Northern Mexico sold Oxycodone, Xanax, or Adderall. Some of these sold legitimate pills while 27% of those pharmacies were selling fake pills.

"These counterfeit pills represent a serious overdose risk to buyers who think they are getting a known quantity of a weaker drug," said UCLA assistant professor-in-residence of medicine Chelsea Shover.

The study also found that the fake pills were discovered in 11 pharmacies. Nine of the 45 samples they found were sold as Adderall, which contained meth, while eight sold as Oxycodone had fentanyl. Finally, three of the samples sold as Oxycodone contained heroin.

Mexico Suffering From Increase in Fentanyl Overdoses

While the fake pills are usually targeted toward American tourists, local Mexican residents are also suffering, with border communities being particularly hard-hit.

Al Jazeera noted that the Mexican government still denies opioid use is a problem, but despite these, communities along the US-Mexico border have seen a spike in overdoses from fentanyl.

Fentanyl is being sold to impoverished communities around the border, such as the border city of Tijuana, with people formerly addicted to heroin changing their preference to fentanyl. These powerful opioids are often being sold as drugs around the streets and are often mixed with meth and heroin to make them more addictive.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: A rare look inside one Mexican cartel's fentanyl operation, and how the drug reaches the U.S. - PBS NewsHour