Thirteen people jailed over black market veterinary medicines scam
Thirteen people from the UK and France have been sentenced for their parts in a £6m black market veterinary medicines scheme.
Regine and Ronald Meddes, the Picardy-based owners of Eurovet — which flooded the UK market with unlawful drugs — were sentenced to 20 and 28 months’ jail, at Croydon Crown Court on 7 July.
Richard Jones and June Connelly, who run Henry Field Stud in Pershore, Worcs, received suspended sentences of six and four months, for importing drugs.
Jones, along with Peter Lock of Brentwood Essex, was the distributor for Eurovet in the UK (news, 19 May).
Lock was sentenced to 10 months’ jail, suspended for two years.
Three major customers were also convicted, including artificial insemination practitioner Richard James, of Llysonnen Road, Carmarthen, who sold £36,000 of drugs to farmers in his area at a 25% mark-up.
He was ordered to pay back £45,551 and perform 100 hours’ community service.
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The company has no connection to Eurovet Animal Health Limited of Cambridge.
This news story was first published in the current issue of Horse & Hound (14 July, 2011)
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.