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The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) seized nearly 20 million doses of illegally traded medicines worth around £45 million last year.

Working alongside law enforcement, the MHRA recovered about 10 million doses of sedatives and sleeping pills, over four million doses of powerful painkillers and more than four million doses of erectile dysfunction treatments.

The operation also seized more than 5,000 glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist products. The MHRA said it dismantled “a major illicit manufacturing facility” which made and distributed unlicensed weight loss jabs during a raid on a warehouse in Northampton in October.

The MHRA said its financial investigators “denied criminals access to more than £2.1 million in assets linked to the illegal trade in medicines” and “worked with internet service providers to disrupt more than 1,500 websites and social media accounts illegally selling medical products”.

More than 1,200 social media posts were also removed during the year, the MHRA added.

It revealed it developed an AI algorithm with eBay to identify and block more than two million “violations of the company’s policies on prescription-only and non-compliant over-the-counter medicines before the products could be offered for sale to the public”. 

“Criminals see this trade as easy money but our relentless efforts are making it increasingly difficult for them to operate,” said Andy Morling, the MHRA’s deputy director, enforcement.

“Our focus last year, as always, has been firmly on stopping these dangerous products reaching the public in the first place.”