THREE Watsons stores in Shenzhen have been found illegally selling unlicensed products, the city's drug watchdog said Saturday.

A raid by a task force of the municipal food and drug administration, which acted on information about the Watsons stores at CITIC City Plaza, New World of Meilin and on Fumin Road found they were selling unlicensed imported cosmetic products, the Chinese-language papers reported yesterday.

The administration received a complaint from a resident last week, who claimed he had bought a bottle of fake Vitamin D tablets from the Fumin Watsons store, the reports said.

The store manager failed to produce government permits to sell the product, officials said.

Task force leader Tao Hongdou said the stores would be punished for the illegal operations, but did not elaborate.

The Watsons store at Diwang Mansion was punished last year for selling health products without permission, according to Tao.

He advised residents to buy medicine at hospitals or licensed pharmacies.

The largest health and beauty retailer in Asia under the A.S. Watsons Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), Watsons operates more than 1,500 stores and 1,165 pharmacies in 13 markets including China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, Indonesia, Estonia and Slovenia.

It has 200 stores in China, employing more than 5,000 employees.

(Li Jing)