NAFDAC Destroys Customised Bottles In Lagos As Fake Drinks Trade Booms

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has destroyed thousands of customised bottles at Iyana-Iba in Lagos, a major hub where empty premium spirit bottles are traded for reuse by counterfeiters.

The exercise, carried out at the weekend, targeted bottles of popular brands including Jack Daniel’s, Hennessy, Red Label, Action Bitters and  Dry Gin, which intelligence showed were being mopped up by counterfeiters to produce fake drinks.

NAFDAC officials said the market has become a supply chain for the illicit alcohol industry. Counterfeiters buy the empty bottles, refill them with adulterated contents in unregulated facilities, and push them back into circulation as original products.

“We have come here to destroy all these bottles gathered here. These are the bottles counterfeiters use to imitate original drinks and without these bottles, there is no way they will continue with their illegal production,” an official said during the operation.

“That is why we have come here today to destroy the bottles so that counterfeiters do not have access to them.”

The agency said the destruction was necessary to break the production cycle and protect consumers from the health risks of counterfeit alcoholic drinks, which often contain harmful chemicals and are produced in unsanitary conditions.

NAFDAC appealed to Nigerians to stop patronising sellers of used bottles and to destroy empty bottles after consumption.

“We are calling on Nigerians, please, stop patronising the sellers of customised bottles. Once you finish your drinks, carefully break the bottle so that counterfeiters will have no access to the bottles,” the official said.

According to the agency, the operation is part of a wider market sanitisation drive.

“We are combing everywhere and that is where our officials discovered some of these things. This exercise is just to ensure that Nigerians consume healthy drinks because some people somewhere bottle all kinds of drinks everywhere. They go to places that are not designated for such and produce all kinds of things. So we are not relenting, we are combing everywhere to sanitise the market,” the official added.

NAFDAC said enforcement will continue across Lagos and other states where fake and substandard regulated products have been found.