We bought new wonder jab Triple G that's better and cheaper than Mounjaro... even though it's illegal. This is the dark truth about the surge in 'fake' weight loss drugs online - and the signs you must watch out for

It's being described as the best weight-loss jab yet –with results that outstrip Wegovy or Mounjaro.

But anyone hoping to try retatrutide (also known as Triple G) should beware. For while the drug has yet to finish proper clinical trials – and isn't expected to be launched in the UK for two years – a Good Health investigation has discovered that dozens of UK-based and international websites are already offering vials of what they claim to be retatrutide for sale.

Experts have raised concerns that the public may be parting with anything from £50 to more than £160, for a powder that they and the makers of the genuine drug say is unlikely to be retatrutide (see below).

Previous tests have found fake fat jabs that contain nothing more than sugar alcohol – a form of sweetener – or even traces of insulin alongside other unidentifiable compounds.

And there are real risks to health. Several people needed hospital treatment as a result of using fake fat jabs.

Vicky Boyd, a mother-of-four from Newcastle, bought what she thought was semaglutide for £75 through an advert on Facebook to lose weight ahead of a family holiday to Turkey.

But she ended up in hospital, after her heart rate spiked at 225 beats per minute after just one dose. She was told that her body 'was riddled with toxins' and her kidneys were failing.

Even weeks after treatment last year, she feared she had done herself permanent damage, saying: 'I feel lucky to be alive.'

Yet as the frenzy for weight-loss jabs increases – and with prices now ranging from around £100 a month for Wegovy to more than £300 for the highest dose of Mounjaro – experts fear some might be tempted by the seemingly cheaper and more effective option: retatrutide.

Around 1.5million people in Britain now regularly use the new weight-loss drugs. But the surge in demand has come with a parallel boom in sales of fake slimming medication, sold online by unscrupulous suppliers and often containing little or no trace of the active drug.

In August, City of London Police announced that it had seized around £32,000 worth of fake retatrutide, Mounjaro and Ozempic (which contains the same active drug, semaglutide, as Wegovy – but in a different dose for people with type 2 diabetes) in a raid on a warehouse in Lancashire.

Investigations revealed that an organised crime group had been involved in the sale and distribution of the medications – including retatrutide – without a prescription or licence from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the body that monitors drug safety in the UK.

Detective Constable Jason Theobald, from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, warned of the 'very real dangers in purchasing counterfeit or unlicensed medicines online'.

He added: 'Not only are they potentially unsafe, but they could also be sold without the necessary medical advice and therefore are extremely dangerous.'

The MHRA has warned that counterfeit jabs can contain toxic substances that may be fatal.

Even in those made with the same active ingredients as in Wegovy and Mounjaro (semaglutide and tirzepatide, respectively), the MHRA warns the doses can be so dangerously high (due to sloppy manufacturing processes) that they could kill users.

Rogue suppliers are now jumping on the retatrutide bandwagon because, on current evidence, it looks likely to outperform all its rivals.

Studies have shown that it can lead to an average weight loss of 26 per cent body weight over 18 months, compared to 22 per cent with Mounjaro and 16 per cent with Wegovy.

This is down to the fact that it targets three crucial hormones involved in appetite suppression – hence its nickname, 'Triple G'.

The first is glucagon-like peptide-1 (or GLP-1), a hormone released by the stomach to tell the brain it's full and no more food is required. This is the main active ingredient in Wegovy and Mounjaro.

The second is glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP. It too curbs appetite and is also found in Mounjaro.

But retatrutide contains a third hormone – glucagon. Its role as part of the Holy Trinity of weight-loss hormones is to increase energy expenditure – by stimulating the breakdown of fat stores. It's this combined effect of dampening down hunger and boosting energy release that is the secret to retatrutide's potential success, says Alex Miras, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Ulster.

'It's going to be a big step forward and likely to be the most effective drug when it eventually comes out in a year or two,' he told Good Health. 'It's a molecule that decreases food intake but increases energy expenditure.'

But with trials ongoing in the UK, US and Canada only researchers involved in those trials, or scientists working for Eli Lilly – the US pharmaceutical firm that developed retatrutide – have access to it.

Yet our investigation found dozens of UK-based and international websites are already selling what they claim to be retatrutide, at prices ranging from £54.99 for 5mg to £179.99 for 10mg (most people in the trials are taking doses of 1-2mg a week – but some are on up to 12mg a week).

All it took was a few clicks of the computer mouse – and no health checks whatsoever – and we were able to buy five separate batches of 'retatrutide' from UK-based suppliers in just a matter of minutes.

All of those suppliers describe their products as 'not suitable for human use' and only to be used for research purposes – a commonly used get-out clause for companies not wanting to be accused of selling unlicensed pharmaceutical drugs to the public.

The MHRA told the Daily Mail anything that fulfils the definition of a medicinal product must be authorised by it before it can be legally sold and supplied in the UK. In a statement, it added: 'There is no exemption for research purposes.'

But while all five orders arrived, the quality of what turned up was immediately questionable.

One of the orders placed online from a UK supplier was supposed to contain 10mg retatrutide – but the vial that turned up was almost entirely empty.

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Another supplier sent a vial of an indeterminate powder with separate sterile water – and no instructions for how to mix them and no means of injecting them (the weight-loss jabs to date have been given as a weekly injection into the arm, stomach or thigh using a self-injector pen).

'I would be very surprised if these are not fake,' said Professor Miras. 'This [retatrutide] is a very sophisticated drug – not something you can easily manufacture.' In a statement, Eli Lilly said the real drug is not available to anyone outside of clinical trials.

'It has not been approved by any regulatory agency in the world and at this time no one can sell retatrutide for human use,' it told Good Health.

'Any product falsely representing itself as such may expose patients to potentially serious health risks.'

None of the suppliers contacted required proof of any kind that the 'drugs' we bought were not for personal use. Furthermore, there were no checks on who was buying the drugs: the only details needed to secure a supply were a name, email, address and telephone number.

In sharp contrast, legitimate online pharmacies selling licensed weight-loss jabs are required to verify patients' body mass index, obtain visual evidence of obesity and – if necessary – request information from the patient's GP.

What's more, one supplier I contacted based in India started placing calls to my phone minutes after I began to fill in an order form, but didn't complete the payment process. In the end I had to block the number to stop the repeated attempts to contact me.

Andy Morling, head of the MHRA's criminal enforcement unit, told Good Health: 'We are aware of reports about products being sold online and through social media platforms that claim to contain retatrutide.

'This drug is currently in clinical development and has not been approved for use in the UK.

'Outside of authorised clinical trials, any products being sold in the UK that claim to contain retatrutide are likely to be illegal and potentially dangerous.'

He warned products bought from unregulated suppliers will not meet the MHRA's 'strict quality and safety standards… and can expose patients to incorrect doses or dangerous ingredients that can have serious health consequences'.

And while the early results of retatrutide are encouraging, Professor Miras says glucagon has been investigated as a weight-loss treatment for many years – but scientists have struggled to find a dose that is effective and tolerated by patients.

'It causes nausea and can be very difficult to tolerate,' he says.

'If the side-effect profile is as good as trials suggest then that is fantastic news, but I would be a little bit cautious until we see the results from [ongoing] clinical trials.' These are likely to be available next year.

German drug-maker Boehringer Ingelheim is also working on a jab that combines a GLP-1 drug with glucagon.

Called survodutide, it's expected to become available in the UK in 2027 and trials show that almost 40 per cent of patients on the drug lose a fifth or more of their body weight in just under a year.

Like retatrutide, it's already being marketed online by UK-based websites at around £321 for a 5mg dose. Even if it's genuine – which is extremely unlikely – this is barely enough to cover more than a couple of weeks.

So if the drug's make-up is such a closely guarded secret, how do these online suppliers claim to come by it?

When asked by Good Health if they make it themselves, one UK-based provider said: 'No – we import it from a Chinese lab.'

It claimed all imported samples were then sent for independent testing – to verify the retatrutide content – by Janoshik Analytical, a private laboratory in the Czech Republic.

In a statement, a spokesman for Janoshik Analytical said it had tested 'thousands of retatrutide samples over the last few years', adding 'most of those labelled as retatrutide contain retatrutide'.

However, a spokesman for the MHRA said it planned to investigate the companies named in our investigation.