Police raided a company selling food supplement products believed to contain substances banned for use as ingredients in Bang Phlat district of Bangkok yesterday.
The police team led by deputy national police chief Wirachai Songmetta was joined by officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when they searched a warehouse of the company which produces the food supplements under the brand Kalow.
Pol Gen Wirachai said the company, Kalow Rich Inter, was registered as a place for storing and distributing the food supplements. Police found 700 boxes of the product worth 1.3 million baht.
The products seized from the company office yesterday will be tested by the FDA.
The deputy police chief said the investigators were looking into reports that a Facebook page had alleged that the products the police confiscated yesterday were fake.
It was reported the police had obtained food supplements under the Kalow label from another location earlier. The FDA ran tests on them and found the contents were mixed with fluoxetine and orlistat, drugs which are banned for use in food supplements.
Fluoxetine, also known by the trade names of Prozac and Sarafem, is an antidepressant while orlistat is a drug for treating obesity.
Supattra Boonserm, the acting FDA director of the Bureau of Import and Export Inspection, said authorities were investigating where the food supplement manufacturers obtained the two drugs.
She insisted the FDA had never certified a product as an effective dieting tool over a specific period of time. It also does not allow sellers to use the word "slim" in their advertising.
"People have to be very cautious when they buy these products," she said, adding that food supplements should not cause side effects such as palpitations.
Police yesterday questioned a caretaker who said several thousand boxes of the food supplements had been delivered to the company.