Court gives heaviest sentence for selling fake drug online
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A Chinese man was sentenced for 11 years of imprisonment for selling fake drug on the Internet on Friday, which has been the heaviest sentence for such crime given by a Chinese court.
The public trial was held by the People's Court in Hanjiang District in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.
The court said Lu Chong, a 27-year-old farmer from Tianmen City, Hubei, was sentenced for producing and selling fake and substandard drug via the Internet since 2007.
He was also fined by 800,000 yuan (117,000 U.S. dollars) at the trial.
Lu was arrested by police in Wuhan in January this year. Police raided his rental house and seized 5,509 bottles of half-made drug that do not have approvals from the State Administration of Food and Drug for sales.
Police found Lu did not have drug production business license. He used Internet to issue advertisement and sell 99 varieties of drug. His sales amounted to 1.4 million yuan over the past two years.
Wang Dongdong, deputy director of the Wuhan Drug Administration, said that the city has uncovered a series of cases of Internet selling of fake drug. The suspects used the Internet to spread the drug advertisement on treating illness, mostly gout, diabetes and depressive illness.
"The Internet crimes are usually complex and difficult to investigate. The sales are mainly delivered by post, which is difficult to be seized," he said.
He said in Lu's case, investigators took three months to travel to 20 cities and towns to visit more than 400 victims of fake drug in order to collect crime evidences.
Li Haiyan, an official in the district government of Hanjiang, said the public trial on Lu showcased the government's determination to give severe punishment to Internet sales of fake drug, and improved the public awareness on the drug safety.
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