Overview

• High demand for off-label use of Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro driven by celebrity endorsements and supply shortages has fueled black-market prescription forgeries.
• Organized crime networks are suspected of forging and stealing paper prescriptions bearing real patient names in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
• The Bundeskriminalamt reports a nationwide rise in weight-loss drug forgeries over the past two years, though detailed statistics remain unavailable.
• Secure electronic prescriptions have cut forgery attempts from multiple cases per month this spring to about one per month in some northern pharmacies.
• Confidentiality rules limit police involvement and force pharmacies to absorb financial losses when forged prescriptions are discovered too late.