Businessman’s Viagra sex pills probe

A BUSINESSMAN who set up a website selling un-licensed Viagra-style sex pills is at the center of a police probe designed to recover the profits he made.

Graeme Carlton launched his on-line shop in March 2004 and ran it from his home for two years before it came to the attention of the Department of Health.

The kamagra pills – made in India and widely available in Europe – are not licensed in the UK because officials cannot be sure about their safety to users.

Father-of-two Carlton claimed he did not know he was breaking the law by selling them when police raided his home on a smart housing estate in Hartlepool.

Officers targeted the house in Forester Close, Seaton Carew, in late-November 2005 after investigations showed that the website was being run from there.

Inside, they found a room had been coverted into an office and a large amount of kamagra – both pills and jelly – was discovered along with a credit card machine.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday that 1,872 tablets worth around 4,700 were seized together with piles of paperwork detailing sales amounting to 2,250.

Harvey Murray, prosecuting on behalf of the Department of Health, said the raid was carried out after investigators made test purchases from the website in August 2005.

Carlton, 40, was arrested aloing with his cousin, Christopher Hill, a father-of-two, of Kingfisher Close, Hartlepool, on suspicion of advertising and selling unlicensed drugs.

Hill, 35, was fined a total of 300 when he appeared before magistrates and admitted one charge each of advertising and supplying the kamagra for the test purchase.

Carlton pleaded guilty to the same charges as well as advertising and supplying in May and December 2004, advertising and possessing with intent to supply in November 2005.

Judge Tony Briggs yesterday delayed sentencing Carlton until a Proceeds of Crime Act application by Cleveland Police is heard in the spring of next year.

The police want to look into the businessman’s financial affairs to see how much he made from the illegal trade, but the court was told yesterday he had actually lost out.

Jamie Adams, mitigating, said: “This isn’t a case of a fly-by-night hardened criminal cocking a snook at the law, but rather a man who is a thoroughly decent, hardworking businessman who ventured 8,000 into this with his cousin.

“He had no idea that there needed to be any kind of official license to sell this commodity which is freely available in Europe.”

But Judge Briggs told Carlton: “You are obviously a mature, intelligent and experienced man and I have to say I don’t, at first sight, entirely accept that you were not aware there was a risk in selling this sort of stuff.

“It quite clearly has received a lot of publicity and the basic problem with it is that you are selling a medical product that might have had unfortunate side-effects, particularly if they happened to be manufactured in a way which was less than appropriate.”

Related posts:

November 18, 2007 | Filed Under Viagra Online 
«
»

Comments

Leave a Reply




Please copy the string fP0cE1 to the field below: