By Chioma Obinna

LAGOS — The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has paraded three suspects in Lagos for illegal production and sale of wine, food processing aids, additives and cosmetic products.

The cosmetic products are said to be poisonous to the skin and could pose the risk of skin cancer to unsuspecting users.

Those paraded were Mr. Emmanuel Ume of 9, Oshogbo Street, Itire, Surulere for illegal production and counterfeiting of NAFDAC regulated products in an apartment; Otutu Federick of shop D043, Akwa Ibom Plaza, Trade Fair complex and Mr. Okoye Chikeluo of Shop C004, Kaduna Plaza, Trade Fair complex for counterfeiting cosmetic products.

Speaking on the arrest of the suspects, Dr. Paul Orhii, Director General, NAFDAC, warned that the counterfeit products which were produced without compliance to principles of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and standards of hygiene could pose serious threat to public health.

Orhii said that Ume was arrested in his residence last Sunday, where he was using one of the rooms to produce adulterated, counterfeit and unwholesome brandy among other regulated products.

According to the DG, the suspect used to carry out his underground activity on Sundays and the fake products are secretly distributed via his corner shop in Oke-Arin market, Central Lagos during week days.

According to Orhii, the arrest of Federick and Chikeluo was the result of successful surveillance and monitoring of the activities of the two suspects, who have become notorious for counterfeiting popular and fast moving cosmetics.

Some of the items confiscated from Federick and Chikeluo are 672 packs of unlabelled cosmetic of different colours, 300 packs of Dove essential nourishment body cream, 60 packs of vaseline men cooling body cream and other variant of dove cosmetic products.

The two suspects have been interrogated and the offending products sampled against them for full laboratory evaluation, Orhii said.