Sold Medicine by the Millions without Prescriptions, Admits American Lawyer
Pharmacy by 12th St David via Flickr.
Robert Smoley, a 59 year-old Miami-Dade lawyer, pleaded guilty in federal court to selling millions of pharmaceutical drugs without prescriptions over the Internet on March 3, 2011. Smoley admitted that he distributed in excess of $48 million worth of medicine through the mail.
Federal agents said after accepting orders via the internet and call Centers in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, he mailed medication from a warehouse in Florida. He admitted to selling more than seven million pills through more than 17 online pharmacy sites between 2001 and 2008, reports the Miami Herald.
The former mayor of North Bay Village, Florida, took orders from customers who filled out online orders for medications without information verification, said the plea agreement.
The orders were reviewed by doctors who were paid between $2 and $5 per order, with some doctors approving up to 500 orders per day, without conducting physical exams or reviewing medical paperwork at the insistence of Smoley, he admitted.
Smoley concealed his millions in profits by shifting the money through various accounts set up at U.S. banks, court records state.
“The Smoley drug trafficking organization fed the habits of drug seekers while its members chose profits over the health and well-being of those customers,” said DEA special agent Anthony Williams after Smoley’s guilty plea.
Though he had been under investigation for several years by federal agents in California, he was finally caught in early 2008 when he ordered more than half a million drugs from an undercover DEA agent.
He pleaded guilty before federal Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco in November to conspiracy to distribute schedule III and IV controlled substances and conspiracy to launder money. Smoley has been sentenced to 40 months in prison.