Illinois Man Convicted of Shipping Meds for Fake Online Pharmacy

An Illinois resident pleaded guilty in Federal Court to conspiracy to distribute and dispenses Schedule III and IV controlled substances and to illegal use of a communication facility to facilitate a drug crime by shipping drug orders for fake online pharmacy customers.

Steven B. Immergluck, 35, of Aurora, IL, pleaded guilty without a trial.

Immergluck was a sales representative for Freight Savers Express, a reseller of DHL express mail package delivery service) in Chicago which handled the interstate delivery of drug orders for customers without valid prescriptions. The customers completed online medical questionnaires and received illegitimate prescriptions authorized without a doctor/patient relationship, however the false prescriptions were signed by legitimate doctors, reports the U.S. Department of Justice.

Two of the doctors involved gave up their medical licensees after admitting they worked for fake internet pharmacies; two other doctors admitted participating, however the illegal pharmacies involved continued to use their names without authorization for the conspiracy.

Immergluck’s role was to contract the delivery of the drugs to the customers, but in order to increase business, Immergluck and his superior recruited pharmacists and doctors to work for their fake online pharmacy customers, including Global Access as well as others.

Immergluck recruited Meetinghouse Community Pharmacy in Dorchester as the fulfillment pharmacy for Global Access and the other fake internet pharmacies. From September 2006 to September 2008, approximately 35,000 packages of controlled substances were ordered through Global Access and picked up at Meetinghouse by DHL. Freight Savers received almost $500,000 for the deliveries just from Global Access.

Immergluck is scheduled to be sentenced on September 20, 2011.

By S. Imber