Thin without good: the court sentenced ten traffickers of illegal "Ozempik"
The Khoroshevsky district court sentenced 10 members of a group who illegally imported Ozempik, a popular diabetes remedy, into Russia, one of the side effects of which is weight loss. Yelena Muth, an entrepreneur and pharmacy owner, will spend five years in a general regime colony, and she is also deprived of the right to engage in pharmaceutical activities. The rest of the defendants in the criminal case received from 2.5 years probation to 5 years in prison. In 2023, they developed a scheme for importing the drug, which was no longer officially supplied to Russia.: at first, it was delivered by mail to Kazakhstan, and from there to our country. Experts called the terms quite lenient — the articles of the Criminal Code imputed to the defendants suggest a much more severe punishment.
How counterfeit "Ozempik" was traded
On August 28, the Khoroshevsky District Court sentenced 10 people accused of trafficking the drug Ozempik (used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, which gained worldwide fame due to its side effect of severe weight loss). They were charged under the article on the sale of substandard and unregistered medicines, committed on a large scale.
At the end of 2022, the Danish company Novo Nordisk notified Roszdravnadzor of plans to stop supplying this drug to Russia. And they stopped in December 2023. According to investigators, no later than November 2023, the defendants in the case "entered into a criminal conspiracy" and developed a scheme for importing this medicine into Russia. Drugs imported without the consent of the copyright holder are considered counterfeit.
The group members bought the drug abroad and sold them through pharmacies in the capital, Saidemir Suleymanov, a senior investigator of the Investigative Committee for Moscow, told Izvestia in January 2025.
According to the materials presented during the trial, the drug was imported from Kazakhstan, and it was sent to this country from other countries by mail. Accordingly, in Russia it was implemented without instructions in Russian, which is also a violation of the established rules.
The medicine was sold through four pharmacies owned by entrepreneur Elena Muth. She also acted as the head of a criminal group. During searches at the places of residence of the defendants in the case, as well as in pharmacies in January 2025, law enforcement officers seized 300 packages of the drug with a total value of more than 10 million rubles.
As reported by Saydemir Suleymanov, the defendants managed to sell drugs worth about 100 thousand rubles. According to him, the pharmacy staff knew that they were violating the law by selling counterfeit goods, but they did so following the instructions of their supervisor.
According to the Rusprofile service, Elena Muth is listed as the head of two drug retail companies.: OOO "New pharmacy" and OOO "Mega-Farm". Both were registered in 2007 in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Novaya Apteka sold 110.1 million rubles worth of drugs and medicines in 2023 (a profit of about 6 million rubles), and 116.9 million rubles in 2024 (a loss of 19 million rubles). Mega-Pharm's revenue in 2023 amounted to 63 million rubles (profit — more than 4 million), in 2024 — 74 million rubles (profit — 9.5 million rubles).
In January 2025, at the hearing of the case (at that time she was given a preventive measure — arrest), Elena Muth stated that she sold counterfeit medicines through pharmacies in order to make a profit.
"There is a demand for foreign drugs that have left the Russian market, but their analogues are not as effective," she explained.
The businesswoman also admitted that she instructed pharmacy employees to sell counterfeit goods.
What sentences did the court pass?
All 10 defendants in the case pleaded guilty. The court sentenced Elena Muth to 5 years in a penal colony, deprived her of the right to conduct pharmaceutical activities and ordered her to pay a fine of 1 million rubles.
The four defendants in the case were sentenced to 3 to 4 years in prison and served in a general regime penal colony. The remaining five defendants received suspended sentences.
The defendants could have faced a longer sentence, believes Vladimir Kuznetsov, chairman of the All-Russian Trade Union of Mediators.
"The article on the circulation of falsified, substandard and unregistered medicines, medical devices and the turnover of falsified biologically active additives, considering that the crime was committed by a group of persons by prior agreement, involves punishment in the form of imprisonment for a period of 5 to 10 years with a fine of 1 million to 5 million rubles,— he recalled..
In addition, according to him, the article on the production, acquisition, storage, transportation or sale of unmarked goods and products, provided that the crime was committed by a group of persons, involves punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to 6 years with a fine of up to 1 million rubles.
Lawyer Andrey Mishonov agreed that the punishment could have been stricter.
Statistics and judicial practice show that arrests and the initiation of criminal cases under articles related to drug trafficking occur regularly, said Vladimir Kuznetsov.
—Every year, there are cases of large shipments of substandard and falsified medicines being withdrawn from circulation, and millions of packages of such drugs are being seized," he said.
But Andrei Mishonov noted that such cases do not come to arrests and sentences as often as, for example, in the distribution of drugs.
The first verdict for illegal sales of Ozempika was handed down by Russian courts in December 2024. Then two entrepreneurs who sold this medicine on the Internet were convicted. They received 6 years and 5.5 years probation.
According to investigators, both defendants imported the medicine from Armenia. After the examination, it was found to be of poor quality. In addition, the instructions for the drug were only in foreign languages.
And in February 2025, a criminal case was opened against Nargiz Shapieva, the owner of the Impact pharmacy in Moscow, and Yasmina Alikuliyeva, a pharmacist, for illegal trade in Ozempik. According to investigators, the pharmacy owner and her husband took advantage of the vacuum in the market and the continuing demand for the drug and began to purchase Ozempik from private suppliers and illegally sell it in their pharmacy.
Izvestia, in the course of its own investigation, became convinced that Ozempik, which is not registered in Russia, is freely sold in pharmacies. Illegal drug trafficking can reach 1.5 billion rubles a year, even despite the presence of domestic analogues, analysts say.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
