A review of company documents indicates that Johnson & Johnson sent out a contractor to purchase Motrin before the pain reliever was recalled.

In July, J&J recalled 88,104 packages of Motrin.

According to the reports of The Wall Street Journal, it reviewed internal J&J e-mails indicating some employees knew about the instructions that directed the contractors to pretend they were regular customers.

If they were questioned by store employees, they were told to say they were doing a random quality check, not conducting a recall.

The Journal further said that the instructions turned up in documents given to the U. S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The company was just trying to remove the affected product with as little disruption as possible and had kept federal regulators and wholesalers informed of its actions, a spokeswoman for J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit has said. (With Inputs from Agencies)