A leukemia patient who had reportedly purchased unlicensed anticancer drugs overseas for himself and other patients via an illegal credit card has been arrested, despite hundreds of patients' appealing for his pardon, in Beijing on Saturday, Beijing Times reported.

An undated photo shows Lu Yong, a leukemia patient who reportedly purchased unlicensed anticancer drugs overseas for himself and other patients via an illegal credit card, in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province.[Photo/infzm.com]

Lu Yong, the patient, arrived on Saturday night at Beijing airport from Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province, with two of his friends, for a media interview. "We were walking together and suddenly we realized that Lu was missing. Then we found out that he had been taken away by police," said one of Lu's friend, who later learned that "Lu was listed as a fugitive".

Zhang Yupeng, the lawyer of Lu Yong, said the arrest warrant had been issued in Yuanjiang, Central China's Hunan province, and Beijing police cooperated in his arrest.

According to Zhang, Lu is being held at a detention center in Beijing before being transported to Yaunjiang. The family members of Lu had not received any legal documents from the police as of 9:30 am on Wednesday.

Lu was charged with "sale of fake drugs" and "impairing credit card administration" on July 21, 2014, by Yuanjiang procuratorate after local police busted a credit card trafficking gang, from whom Lu had allegedly bought three cards.

Lu reportedly used one of the illegal credit cards to purchase the anticancer drugs, which is unlicensed in China, from India from 2012 to August, 2013, according to the indictment.

The current China's law states that any medicine that has not been given the green light by authorities will be considered fake, even if it is effective, prosecutor Luo Jian, who is dealing with the case, told Beijing Times.

People who provide accounts for the sale of fake drugs will be treated as accomplices, according to the law, Luo said.

Lu, the 47-years-old owner of a textile foreign trade company in Wuxi, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in 2002. He had since then taken an anticancer drug "Gleevec", developed by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

However, the patient should take a box of medicine that costs of 23,500 yuan ($3,793) every month. Lu almost went bankrupt due to the cost.

A favorable turn occurred in June, 2004, when Lu accidentally found Veenat, the Gleevec's Indian version, which claims to have a nearly identical efficacy and only costs 4,000 yuan if bought directly from India.

He shared the news with leukemia patient circles at social network platform QQ, which gradually attracted more than 1,000 patients who asked him to purchase the medicine for them because of language barrier and complicated overseas purchase procedures. The group-purchasing-price of Veenat fell over the years to 200 yuan a box, one hundredth the value of Gleevec, by Sep 2013.

When Lu was charged, more than 300 patients wrote a joint letter and petitioned legal authorities to exempt him from criminal punishment.

His case is under review and he has been out on bail since March, 2014.

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