Tag: crime

The reputation of Chinese pharmaceuticals in Africa has taken a hammering over the last couple of years. Far from curing disease, Chinese companies are accused of sitting at the centre of a vast counterfeiting industry dumping fake medicines on the continent at a cost of billions of dollars and countless lives.

But two Chinese pharmaceutical companies – Guilin Pharmaceuticals and Watson Global Pharmaceuticals – are breaking new ground by introducing SMS-based authenticity checks for their anti-malarial drugs in Africa. Continue reading »

Rat meat disguised as mutton, fake pharmaceuticals, entire replica Apple stores – China has seen almost every scam imaginable. But in the latest scandal unearthed by Chinese police the pirates have started to intrude into people’s love lives.

In a nationwide crackdown the authorities have arrested 37 people on suspicion of manufacturing nearly 5m fake brand-name condoms and selling them to unwitting consumers through supermarkets, pharmacies and sex shops across the country. Continue reading »

Aerosmith wrote a hit single about “Livin’ on the Edge” but it seems that Jakarta, which has one of Southeast Asia’s hottest live music scenes, is just a little bit too edgy for the ageing US rockers.

The Bad Boys from Boston, as they are called, have cancelled their planned gig in Jakarta this Saturday because of unspecified safety concerns, disappointing the more than 12,000 fans who had bought tickets and representatives of Indonesia’s burgeoning concert promotion industry. Continue reading »

When Wang Qishan (left) was made head of the Communist party’s anti-corruption agency, it was expected that he would put his tough-guy reputation to work in taking down high-ranking officials.

Nearly two months into the job, Wang has signed his first publicly reported investigation orders. Contrary to expectations, the targets are not big fish. Instead, they are a series of little-known bond traders. What explains Wang’s focus? Continue reading »

China’s capital markets have a most placid surface. Domestic bonds have never experienced a default and equities have traded in a narrow range for more than a year.

But still waters run deep. Events of the past week have exposed the strains, turmoil and alleged crimes seething beneath the calm. Continue reading »

The head of Shell’s Nigerian oil unit has warned that Africa’s largest oil producing country is in crisis as a result of a “significant upsurge” in oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

Making the comments on Sunday following an aerial survey of its operations, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria’s managing director Mutiu Sunmonu said the company was losing 60,000 barrels of oil a day as a result of theft, the heaviest losses in three years. Continue reading »

Mexico’s national statistics office, known as Inegi, has published its first study of the impact of crime on the nation’s business community. And it makes for hair-raising reading.

The study, which covers 2011, showed that 37 per cent of firms in Mexico were victims of crime that year, about half of them more than once. But that is not all. Continue reading »

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