DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Counterfeit drugs sold online and seized in the United Arab Emirates arrived through a series of global free trade zones, investigators in six countries said.

The recent seizure of warehoused drugs in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, revealed a medicine trading chain from China, Hong Kong, Dubai, Britain and the Bahamas, and finally to an Internet pharmacy that led Americans to think they were buying pharmaceuticals from Canada, said The New York Times, which interviewed regulators and drug company investigators.

"Free trade zones allow counterfeiters to evade the laws of the country because often times the regulations are lax in these zones," Ilisa Bernstein, director of pharmacy affairs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told the Times.

A third of counterfeit drugs seized in Europe last year came through Dubai, located centrally to Africa, Asia and Europe, the Times said. The Colon Free Trade Zone next to the Panama Canal is another hotbed for fake medicine, the Times said.