Nominet has suspended 500 .uk domains as part of an international operation to close down websites selling counterfeit pharmaceutical products.

Almost 13,500 websites worldwide were suspended as part of Operation Pangea IV, an Interpol coordinated effort which resulted in the seizure of more than 2.4 million fake pills worth approximately £4 million.

Nominet acted to suspend the .uk domains following a request from The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Police Central e-Crime Unit.

Eleanor Bradley, Nominet’s Director of Operations, said that the sites were in “clear breach” of Nominet’s terms and conditions, due to their owners having provided fraudulent WHOIS details.

If we didn’t think it was in specific breach of our terms of conditions, we would take no action against the domain name.
— Eleanor Bradley, quoted in The Register

Nominet is currently developing “domain abuse policy” to govern future domain suspensions in cases of alleged criminal misuse.

See also: Nominet press release