India's Opioid Kings: BBC Eye investigation exposes an Indian pharma firm fuelling West Africa's opioid crisis
India's Opioid Kings, a new documentary from the BBC World Service's award-winning BBC Eye Investigations team, has revealed that an Indian pharmaceutical company is manufacturing unlicensed, addictive opioids and exporting them illegally to West Africa where they are driving a major public health crisis.
Aveo Pharmaceuticals, based in Mumbai, makes a range of pills that go under different brand names and are packaged to look like legitimate medicines. But all contain the same harmful mix of ingredients: tapentadol, a powerful opioid, and carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant so addictive it's banned in Europe.
This combination of drugs is not licensed for use anywhere in the world and can cause breathing difficulties and seizures. An overdose can kill. Despite the risks, these opioids are widely used as street drugs in many West African countries. The BBC World Service found packets of them, branded with the Aveo logo, for sale on the streets of Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote D'Ivoire.
Having traced the drugs back to Aveo's factory in India, the BBC sent an undercover operative inside the factory, posing as an African businessman looking to supply opioids to Nigeria. Using a hidden camera, the BBC filmed one of Aveo's directors, Vinod Sharma, showing off the same dangerous products the BBC found for sale across West Africa.
In the secretly recorded footage, the operative tells Sharma that his plan is to sell the pills to teenagers in Nigeria 'who all love this product.' Sharma doesn't flinch. 'OK,' he replies, before explaining that if users take two or three pills at once, they can 'relax' and get 'high.' Towards the end of the meeting, Sharma holds up a box of pills made in his own factory and admits: 'This is very harmful for their health — but nowadays, this is business.'
It is a business that is damaging the health and destroying the potential of millions of young people across West Africa, including in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote D'Ivoire, the BBC Eye documentary shows.
In the city of Tamale, in Ghana, so many young people are taking illegal opioids that one of the city's chiefs, Alhassan Maham, has created a voluntary task force of about 100 citizens whose mission is to raid drug dealers and take these pills off the streets. 'The drugs consume the sanity of those who abuse them,' says Maham, 'like a fire burns when kerosene is poured on it.' One addict in Tamale put it even more simply. The drugs, he said, have 'wasted our lives'.
Nigeria, with a population of 225 million people, provides the biggest market for these pills. The Chairman of Nigeria's Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa, told the BBC, opioids are 'devastating our youths, our families, it's in every community in Nigeria.'
In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot legally manufacture and export unlicensed drugs unless these drugs meet the standards of the importing country. Aveo ships Tafrodol and similar products to Ghana, where this combination of tapentadol and carisoprodol is, according to Ghana's national Drug Enforcement Agency, unlicensed and illegal. By shipping Tafrodol to Ghana, Aveo is breaking Indian law.
BBC Eye put these allegations to Vinod Sharma and Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They did not respond.
The Indian drugs regulator, the CDSCO, told us the Indian government recognises its responsibility towards global public health and is committed to ensuring India has a responsible and strong pharmaceutical regulatory system. It added that exports from India to other countries are closely monitored and that recently tightened regulation is strictly enforced. It also called importing countries to support India's efforts by ensuring they had similarly strong regulatory systems. The CDSCO stated it has taken up the matter with other countries, including those in West Africa, and is committed to working with them to prevent wrongdoing. The regulator said it will take immediate action against any pharmaceutical firm involved in malpractice.
Watch BBC Eye Investigation: India's Opioid Kings on BBC iPlayer
International audiences can watch the film on the BBC Africa YouTube channel.
Read the story on the BBC News website – via bbc.co.uk in the UK; and internationally – on BBC.com, BBC Studios global digital news platform.
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