Operation Dunwich: unregistered sildenafil products seized in Trinidad

Two raids in one week

On Friday 22 May 2026 the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) Multi-Agency Task Force ran Operation Dunwich across the Southern and South Western Divisions, with the Chemistry, Food and Drugs Division (CFDD) of the Ministry of Health, the Customs and Excise Division, the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards and other agencies. It seized more than 3,000 illicit and uncertified items, including 318 unregistered male enhancement pharmaceutical items¹. At a supermarket in South Oropouche, officers took tobacco not licensed for sale, counterfeit clothing, uncertified electrical goods and unregistered pharmaceutical and supplement products; a pharmaceutical establishment in Debe had no illicit items¹. The TTPS said investigators obtained information "expected to assist in identifying the distributors and suppliers"¹.

Five days later, on Wednesday 27 May, "DUNWICH 5/2026" returned to the South Oropouche Police District and seized more than 2,700 items, including 1,016 unregistered male enhancement and assorted pharmaceutical products, from a supermarket on the Southern Main Road and another in Pepper Village, Fyzabad²³. The operation was supervised by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Intelligence and Investigations) Natasha George².

The CFDD's warning: hidden sildenafil

The CFDD cautioned that several seized products "may contain unsafe and unregulated chemical substances, including Sildenafil", and that misuse without medical supervision "can pose serious health risks"³⁴. The point is medical supervision. In Trinidad and Tobago, prescription-only Third Schedule drugs "may be supplied only on the authority of a valid prescription issued by a physician, dentist, or veterinarian"⁶. A drug hidden in a supermarket supplement reaches the buyer with no prescriber, no pharmacist and no label stating the dose³⁴.

What the lab data show

The CFDD's concern is backed by decades of laboratory work. A 2023 review counted 112 unapproved phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors found as adulterants in dietary supplements between 2003 and July 2023; 75 of them (67 %) were analogues of sildenafil, 26 of tadalafil and 9 of vardenafil⁷. The authors note that identifying the structures of newly emerging analogues "remains a challenge"⁷. In a screening study by researchers at Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of products sold in online or offline markets from 2014 to 2017, 145 of 362 samples were adulterated; the sildenafil group accounted for 50 % of adulterated samples and the tadalafil group for 41 %, with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 826.0 mg/g⁸. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified⁹.

What the Food and Drugs Act allows

The Food and Drugs Act, Chapter 30:01, treats any substance sold for "restoring, correcting or modifying organic functions" as a drug (section 2). Section 4 makes it an offence to advertise a drug to the general public, or sell one represented by label, as a treatment or cure for the conditions in the First Schedule, a list that includes sexual impotence, obesity and diabetes. Section 9 bans selling an adulterated drug, and section 10 bans misleading labelling. Inspectors may enter premises, take samples and seize products (section 21); seized products can be forfeited to the State, with the owner's consent or by order of a magistrate, and destroyed or disposed of as the Minister directs (section 23). Penalties under section 33 reach TT$15,000 and three years in prison on indictment⁵.

Yet the charges announced after the 27 May operation were potential charges under the Tobacco Control Act, the Trademark Act and the Standards Act, with investigations into the goods' origin continuing². That pattern is not new. In January 2025 the Ministry's legal adviser told a Joint Select Committee that the Ministry had made 84 referrals of pharmacy breaches, including sales of unregistered products, and that no one had been charged¹¹. In 2024 the Chief Medical Officer reported 24 pharmacies under police investigation and described illegal drugs as a "great threat to public health and safety"¹⁰.

Part of a wider pattern

The same channels move other medicines. In February 2026 the Ministry of Health, through the CFDD, issued an alert about a falsified Wegovy tablet product that "is not authorised for use in Trinidad and Tobago"¹³, and online advertising of Ozempic was referred to the police in 2025¹¹. Since March 2026 a Ministry online database lets the public search more than 10,000 approved drugs by registered name, manufacturer and regulatory category; the deputy comptroller of the Customs and Excise Division said it "would be of great benefit"¹².

What it means for physicians

When a patient reports unexpected effects after a "natural" enhancement product, an undeclared PDE-5 inhibitor at an unknown dose is a real possibility: the 2014 to 2017 screening study found concentrations spanning almost four orders of magnitude⁸, and new analogues keep appearing⁷. Under the Act, inspectors can sample suspected products, submit them for analysis and seize them⁵.