Philippines officials sacked over fake drugs shipment

Two customs officers in the Philippines have been fired after releasing a shipment of counterfeit medicines.

As yet there are no suggestions that the officials from the Philippines Bureau of Customs (BOC) deliberately facilitated the infiltration of the counterfeit medicines into the country, according to a Philippine Star report.

The consignment of fake hypertension and diabetes drugs - worth PHP 12m ($269,000) and reported to have been shipped from Pakistan - were released from a warehouse at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila despite an alert order being issued for the shipment by the BOC Intelligence Group.

The shipment was mis-declared as a consignment of food supplements.