Emergency situations also attract picaresque. The Mossos d'Esquadra immobilized 1,681 liters of a cleaning product that requires the use of gloves and that a local in Terrassa (Barcelona) falsely sold as a hand sanitizing gel, due to its shortage in stores due to the coronavirus.

On 23 March, a neighbor alerted the Mossos d'Esquadra of the Terrassa police station that they had detected that a hydroalcoholic gel with contradictory labels was being marketed in an establishment in the city. The policemen were able to see how the illustration on the packaging suggested that it was a product for hand hygiene, such as the gels used to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

However, in another part of the container, and in very small print, it was specified that the product had to be used with gloves and that the contact of the gel with the skin had to be avoided. For this reason, the agents of the Central Consumption Unit of the Criminal Investigation Division, together with the pharmaceutical and health products control service of the Health Department of the Generalitat, opened an investigation.

Specifically, they determined that the product was published on the website of the marketing company as a hand gel against coronavirus, thereby giving it a biocidal character that it did not actually have. For its part, the Health department confirmed that the product was not authorized by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) as a biocide and that the distribution company could not manufacture cosmetic products. Salud sent the same day of the complaint, last Monday, March 23, a request to the company to stop the manufacture and marketing of the product.

Despite this, the company did not respond to the administration's request, so the following day the Mossos went to the company's facilities, in Rubí (Barcelona), where they stopped manufacturing the product and immobilized all the material that was in the store. In addition, they denounced the company to the guard court of Rubí (Barcelona), on suspicion that the crimes of deceptive advertising and consumer fraud had been committed, and could also be subject to a sanctioning process by the Ministry of Health for marketing sanitary products without authorization.

The Mossos recall that the commercialization of this type of genus occurs in a context of scarcity of this type of gels due to the coronavirus pandemic, and that is why the illegal product has had a great commercial outlet.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Mossos d'Esquadra
  • Barcelona
  • Catalonia
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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