June 9, 2025: Two Indian men pleaded guilty to smuggling counterfeit cancer medicine into the U.S.
Major Stories
The Jha brothers admitted selling counterfeit Keytruda and other prescription drugs to undercover agents.
Avanish and Rajnish Jha have submitted plea deals admitting to smuggling misbranded or adulterated medicines into the United States. According to court documents, between 2018 and 2021 the Indian brothers used a Facebook page to sell unapproved prescription treatments for diabetes, bone marrow disorders, hepatitis C and cancer to undercover federal agents. Testing showed that the Jhas shipped counterfeit Keytruda made with omeprazole, a heartburn drug, rather than the pembrolizumab needed to treat cancer.
Read more:
- Press release
- Indictment
- Pleas: Avanish Jha | Rajnish Jha
Domestic News
Zicam and Orajel nasal swabs were recalled. Sentencings in three pill press cases.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shared the recall of all lots of Zicam Cold Remedy and Nasal AllClear nasal swabs and Orajel Baby Teething Swabs because of potential fungal contamination. Contaminated swabs could cause serious blood infections in users with compromised nasal passages.
Brian Gingras of Lowell, Massachusetts was sentenced to nine years in prison for supplying drugs to a gang-based distribution network. When law enforcement searched Gingras’ home, they found a pill press and hundreds of counterfeit Adderall and Xanax pills. An additional storage unit contained over 30 kilograms of counterfeit Adderall pills composed only of caffeine.
Gregory Castillo-Rosario, Joseph James Vasquez, Joshua William Vasquez and Rafael Antonio Roman of Brooklyn, New York and Luis Santos of Jackson Township, New Jersey received a cumulative sentence of 54 years in federal prison for making and distributing thousands of counterfeit Adderall pills on dark web marketplaces. Investigators seized two pill presses and tens of thousands of pills during the investigation.
Aurora, Colorado resident Tashon Roberts, who was convicted of leading a ring that manufactured and distributed as many as 600,000 fentanyl pills per month between January and August of 2024, was sentenced to 146 years in state prison. A search of Roberts’ home in May 2024 yielded multiple pill presses, M30 die molds, white powder and multiple baggies of fentanyl pills.
PSM keeps track of pill press incidents on our Illegal Pill Presses page. Learn more about the issue.
Legislation
PSM monitors new state legislation weekly in the areas of pill presses, prescription drug affordability boards, and drug importation.
In recent weeks:
- Illinois’ governor signed HB1697 to reform pharmacy benefit manager practices,
- Oregon’s governor signed SB289 to change requirements for the state’s prescription drug affordability board (PDAB),
- Maine’s legislature passed LD697, which would refocus the state’s PDAB on assessing strategies to reduce prescription drug costs, and
- Michigan introduced HB4544, which would create a prescription drug affordability board.
Patient safety issues in the GLP-1 space this week
There’s good news for U.S. patients taking Mounjaro or Zepbound who may want reassurance that their medicine is genuine. Drugmaker Eli Lilly has set up a site where you can scan the 2D code on your medicine package to see whether it has a valid serial number. Try it out here.
International News
Indian authorities disrupted counterfeit medicines sales in Delhi, Hyderabad and Nagpur. NAFDAC warned about fake antibiotics in central Africa.
Indian authorities continue to crack down on drug counterfeiters. In the first week of June, Delhi Police busted a ring that allegedly sold cancer patients counterfeit Opdivo, Keytruda, Erbitux and Lenvima after targeting them online. Authorities in Hyderabad seized fake treatments for diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as counterfeit pills for medical abortion.
A third incident in Nagpur, India involved counterfeit antibiotics being supplied to a local hospital.
Nigeria’s drug regulator shared a World Health Organization alert about counterfeit amoxicillin circulating in central Africa.
Fake medicines like these can be a tragedy for those who encounter them, but they’re also a problem for humanity: counterfeit antibiotics are linked to the development of drug resistant infections that already lead to an estimated 4.95 million deaths annually and could climb to 10 million a year by 2050.