Fifty live crocs from M’sia seized at Heathrow

Greece busts cancer drug theft gang

ATHEnS: Greece has broken up a criminal gang that stole cancer drugs from hospitals and smuggled them to other European countries for resale at a premium, potentially depriving patients of life-saving medicine, police said.

Twenty-one people aged between 22 and 70 have been arrested, among them doctors and nurses, according to the police. They are suspected of using forged prescriptions to get hold of the drugs which they then sent to warehouses in Italy, Germany and Switzerland where they were sold at a big mark-up.

The nature of the crime suggested “particular contempt for society”, police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos said. “They were guided by nothing but profit.” Most cancer drugs are available in Greece only through state hospitals because of their relatively high cost, and those are subsidised by the state.

The gang is believed to have been active since 2013, the peak of a debt crisis that sapped Greece’s economic output and slashed spending in vital sectors including healthcare.

Police said gang members would forge prescriptions for contrived medical conditions, and they were also investigating whether any bona fide cancer patients were short-charged by getting smaller quantities of medication than prescribed. — Reuters London: British officials have seized an illegal shipment of 50 live crocodiles at London Heathrow Airport, the UK Border Force said.

The year-old juvenile saltwater crocodiles were found crammed into five boxes coming from Malaysia.

The were bound for a farm in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, where they were to be bred for their meat.

The animals had not been packed in accordance with international regulations, making the importation illegal.

Each box only had room for four crocodiles but 10 had been packed into each one.

“It is just not acceptable for reptiles to be transported in this way,” said Grant Miller, head of the national Border Force Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at Heathrow.

“The crocodiles had started to fight each other during the flight as space was limited, so little attention had been paid to their welfare.

“We will seize anything that contravenes CITES regulations, so this should serve as a warning to those thinking about transporting wildlife in such conditions.”

The crocodiles were found on April 27. One has since died and the others are being cared for before being rehomed. — AFP