Chinese Viagra smugglers arrested

The Special Investigation Department of the Seoul District Public Prosecutor¡¯s Office arrested two men, including 45 year-old Kwon Hong-Soon, a representative of food importer Tasco, for smuggling bottled tonic from China that contained substances from Viagra, a drug for erective dysfunction. The tonic was sold as a Viagra substitute in violation of the Food Sanitation Act.

Prosecutors also indicted 47 year-old Han, head of the company¡¯s Gyeonggi branch, with a non-restraining order, and informally indicted 40 year-old Kim, sales manager of the company in Seoul, as well as three others.

Prosecutors charged Kwon with illegally importing 24,000 bottles of ¡°Weiger,¡± which supposedly has the same effects as Viagra, and selling them for 30,000 won per bottle from last November until recently.

Kwon accumulated around 700 million won by advertising and selling bottles of Weiger to massage parlors, barbershops and tearooms in Seoul, Gyeonggi province, and other Seoul metropolitan areas, according to prosecutors.

A prosecutorial investigation revealed that each bottle of Weiger contained sildenafil citrate, a principle ingredient in Viagra, equivalent in amount to one Viagra tablet (50 mg).