Weight Loss Drugs crime data 2024 to date

Request

Specifically, I am seeking information on the following from January 2024 up until the most recent month available, e.g. August 2025:

1. The total number of arrests or recorded offences in relation to the alleged distribution, supply, or possession of illegal or unregulated weight loss drugs and/or products - including cases where licensed products are distributed, supplied, or administered by individuals or businesses not legally authorised to do so (e.g. salons or unlicensed practitioners).

2. The current number of ongoing investigations into the distribution, supply, or possession of such weight loss drugs and/or products - including where the seller or administrator is not licensed to do so.

For clarity, I understand that cases may be recorded under a variety of descriptions or codes. To assist in locating the requested information, the following keywords and terms may be relevant: "GLP-1", "weight loss", "slimming", "Mounjaro", "Ozempic", "Wegovy", "Retatrutide", "Semgalutide", etc.

Possible offence categories (examples, not exhaustive): Administering a poison (e.g. Offences Against the Person Act 1861, s.23/s.24), supplying a prescription-only medicine (Human Medicines Regulations 2012), or supplying an unauthorised medicine (Human Medicines Regulations 2012).

If you use internal classification codes for recording such incidents, please apply those that most closely relate to the above offences. I confirm that I am not seeking any personal or identifying information about individuals involved in these cases.

Response

I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System - Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as 'crimes'. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided me with the enclosed spreadsheet in response and the following explanation regarding their search criteria:

PMU stated: “There isn’t a specific way or offence to retrieve what the requester is asking for so as per their instruction I have carried out two searches based on the below criteria.

Criteria Used – Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2024 and 31/08/2025, SYP & crime only filter, Initial MO is LIKE (pattern match) %GLP-1%, %weight loss%, %slimming%, %Mounjaro%, %Ozempic%, %Wegovy%, %Retatrutide%, %Semgalutide%,

This returned 2 results, neither of which were in relation to the distribution, supply, or possession of such. They were off the back off the term “weight loss” and were a race or religious agg public fear and a harassment offence – so not in relation to what we are looking for,

The second search is based upon the following

Criteria Used - Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2024 and 31/08/2025, SYP & crime only filter, Full Offence Title is equal to Attempted - Endangering Life - Administering poison so as to endanger life, Endangering Life - Administering poison so as to endanger life, Attempted - Doctors or pharmacists providing false information about the prescriptions, supply etc of drugs, Attempted - Forgery of a drug prescription or copying a false drug prescription, Attempted - Using a false drug prescription or a copy of a false drug prescription, Doctors or pharmacists providing false information about the prescriptions, supply etc of drugs, Forgery of a drug prescription or copying a false drug prescription, Using a false drug prescription or a copy of a false drug prescription, Attempted - Triable Either Way Offences under: Human Medicines Regulations 2012 CJS Ref: HM12001-6, 8-20, 23-32, Triable Either Way Offences under: Human Medicines Regulations 2012 CJS Ref: HM12001-6, 8-20, 23-32

This has returned a total of 9 results.”

A manual review of these 9 results revealed no records matching your requests.

We also approached our Custody team with your request. They stated: “We don’t have a reason for arrest that is specifically “alleged distribution, supply, or possession of illegal or unregulated weight loss drugs and/or products” related.  Consequently, this requires the Circumstance of Arrest (CoA) to be reviewed on records that match the following criteria:

• Arrest Date falls between 01/01/2024 and 31/08/2025.
• Circumstance of Arrest contains the following keyword(s):
• GLP-1
• WEIGHT LOSS
• SLIMMING
• MOUNJARO
• OZEMPIC
• WEGOVY
• RETATRUTIDE
• SEMGALUTIDE

No records were returned.”

Therefore, our response is No Information Held.