Man in deadly diabetes drug case arrested

(Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-07 14:25

Police in China have arrested a man accused of distributing a fake diabetes drug blamed for at least two deaths, the Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.

The medicine contained six times the normal amount of a chemical ingredient used to lower blood sugar.

It is blamed for killing two people and sickening nine others in Northwest China's Xinjiang.

Li Dong, described as the chief suspect by The Ministry of Public Security in an arrest warrant Thursday, was caught at 4:40 am Saturday in a rented house in Chaoyang city, said a Liaoning police officer. Li's brother and another suspect were detained earlier.

Li confessed that he had bought the fake diabetes drug from other province, and the police has started a probe into the case.

The Xinjiang authorities said 14,400 bottles of the drug entered the region, of which 10,663 bottles had been recovered, including 3,539 taken from customers.

The drug also showed up in Liaoning and the southwestern Sichuan Province. However, no one has been found to have fallen ill after taking the drug outside of Xinjiang.

It is still not clear where the fake drug was produced.