[Anchor]

Cases of people being caught attempting to bring obesity treatments such as Mounjaro or Wegovy into the country from abroad or via direct online purchases are surging. Among them, counterfeit products with unverified ingredients and distribution conditions have been discovered, requiring special caution.

Here is a report by reporter Hong Yeongjae.

[Reporter]

A parcel shipped via international mail is opened to reveal Mounjaro, an obesity treatment.

Another obesity treatment, Wegovy in pill form, also appears.

Because Mounjaro and Wegovy brought in from overseas are harmful pharmaceutical products designated by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, they are all subject to customs crackdowns unless import requirements are met.

However, with prices in foreign countries like Japan being less than half of those in South Korea, the number of crackdowns up to August of this year has already exceeded four times the total number of crackdowns for the entire last year.

Sixty-three percent of traveler crackdowns involved entries from Japan, while 94 percent of mail crackdowns involved shipments coming from India.

[Lee Jin-hee, Director General of the Customs Clearance Bureau at the Korea Customs Service: In the case of Japan, people go there directly and purchase them, bringing them back in their luggage. For India, in most cases, people purchase them through social media and then bring them in via international mail.]

Safety cannot be guaranteed.

This is Mounjaro that entered South Korea from India through international mail.

Both the packaging box and the syringe shape look identical to the original, but an analysis of the ingredients revealed it to be a counterfeit.

There were nine packages investigated, and the content of tirzepatide, the main ingredient of Mounjaro, varied erratically from product to product, with numerous unidentified impurities also detected.

While Mounjaro must be stored between 2°C and 8°C (36°F and 46°F) to maintain quality, it was confirmed that the counterfeit products underwent no cold-chain transportation process whatsoever.

[Na Dong-hee, Professor at the College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University: This can lead to results that not only degrade the quality of the pharmaceuticals but also increase the risk of unexpected adverse reactions.]

The Korea Customs Service announced that it will strengthen X-ray screening for flights arriving from Japan and expand customs clearance inspections tailored to the characteristics of each import route, such as overseas direct purchases.

(Camera Reporter: Lee Moo-jin | Video Editor: Choi Jin-hwa | Designer: Yang Ki-tae)