A major investigation revealing how thousands of unsafe medicines used to treat conditions like prostate cancer, schizophrenia and epilepsy were dispensed to NHS patients. The programme exposes an extraordinary story of how, in 2014, millions of pounds worth of vital medicines were stolen from Italian hospitals by criminal gangs linked to the Mafia that then set up a network of bogus drug wholesalers in Eastern Europe and used the secretive grey market of prescription medicine trading to sell their stolen drugs into the NHS supply chain. Medical experts warn that once medicines have been stolen and moved out of the official supply chain they are unsafe as the drugs might have been tampered with, diluted or simply stored in conditions that make them ineffective. Despite attempts by the medical authorities in the UK to frustrate the investigation, reporter Antony Barnett discovers that the largest purchaser of these stolen medicines was a company that owns one of Britain's best-known high-street pharmacy chains
