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Washington, D.C. (July 28, 2011) – Bryan A. Liang, MD, PhD, JD, vice president of the Partnership for Safe Medicines, a non-profit dedicated to curbing counterfeit drugs, today issued the following statement on the public health alert issued today by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy regarding the widespread prevalence of fake online pharmacies. “NABP’s latest report and decision…
Read MoreIn an effort to raise public awareness about the dangers of medicines purchased through fake pharmacies online, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) today issued a rare “public health alert.”
A new study by NABP found that 96 percent of 8,000 rogue websites analyzed continue to operate out of compliance with U.S. pharmacy laws, fuel prescription drug abuse, and provide an outlet for counterfeit medicines to enter the U.S. drug supply – all of which significantly endanger the health and safety of Americans. Most of these sites will sell without a valid prescription and 3,687 offer non-FDA-approved drugs. They could be selling dangerous counterfeit medicines that may contain toxic ingredients or not enough of the active ingredient to do what the medicine is supposed to do.
In the announcement of the alert, NABP warned, “The fake online pharmacy crisis has reached an epidemic level, they prey on prescription drug abusers and the most vulnerable members of society who rely on medicine every day for their health. They offer easy access to potent medicines without a prescription and indiscriminately push dangerous counterfeit drugs.
Read MoreScreenshot of an Eva brand fake online pharmacy UCSD researchers have collected data that shows that 33% of medications purchased by Americans from a fake Internet pharmacy affiliate program are for serious illness. They estimate that 85% of all serious illness medication purchased online from fake online pharmacies is purchased by Americans. Researchers at the University of San Diego analyzed the…
Read MoreAn 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…
Read MoreThe top seven card-issuing banks were processors for more than half of all medicine sales to the largest fake Internet pharmacies in the past four years. Brian Krebs reports that sales data stolen from Glavmed, a Russian affiliate program that pays webmasters to host and promote fake online pharmacies, show that card-issuing banks are key to the success of these…
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The online pharmacy spam in your email is probably coming from an online pharmacy organization with close links to organized crime and corrupt police in Russia.
The most actively promoted online pharmacies via spam are associated with Rx-Promotion.com, according to University of California at San Diego researchers.
Now new documents have revealed that Rx-Promotion.com, an affiliate network of rogue pharmacies, is associated with ChronoPay, the largest payment processor in Russia. While ChronoPay claims to be the PayPal of Russia, it makes a large part of its profits from illegal internet-based businesses, including promoting extreme pornographic websites, selling pirated music and movies, and is known for paying off police inspectors and working with nefarious banks.
Investigative reporter Brian Krebs has reported that evidence provided to law enforcement agencies has revealed that ChronoPay’s chief executive, Pavel Vrublevsky, is also definitively the criminal mastermind of this collection of illicit businesses, including the online pharmacies.
According to Krebs, Vrublevsky purchased a license for an Intranet service called “MegaPlan” which is a project management system he used to keep a track of ChronoPay’s “black” operations, including processing payments for counterfeit prescription drugs sold through hundreds of websites affiliated with rogue online pharmacy program Rx-promotion.com.
Delving into the MegaPlan, law enforcement agents discovered how ChronoPay employees tracked payments, ordered supplies, and ran advertising partnerships for Rx-promotion.com and other nefarious services, including “rape” pornography sites and other violent pornography, as well as pirated mp3s, and fake anti-virus software known as “scareware.”
Though employees used pseudonyms in the system, they forwarded the pseudonymic email to their actual ChronoPay email accounts, which allowed authorities to identify them.
The project management software revealed that the equal partners for the rogue pharmacy promotion program, Rx-Promotion, were Vrubelvsky and Yuri Kabayenkov. But in addition, a former Russian police investigator, previously in charge of a criminal investigation of Vrublevsky, was identified as being on the payroll.
Every day Americans go to Tijuana, Mexico to buy prescription drugs at discounted prices, despite US state department warnings that criminals impersonating Mexican authorities have detained US citizens with legitimate prescriptions and demanded large bribes. 25% of the prescription medications available in Mexico are fake or substandard, estimates US authorities, reports CNN. Counterfeit medications are also found in the United…
Read MoreRogue pharmacies are now advertising by using Facebook’s social networking interface.
A brief search on Facebook for term “Viagra” popped up 90 pages.One page, entitled “viagra” [sic] is a Product/Service page and has almost 7,000 fans.
Read More£1 million pounds of suspected fake medicine was seized by British agents of The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and three men were arrested in London. Three residencies were raided, as well as a storage unit, in the north and east areas of London where more than 300,000 tablets of fake medications were discovered, announced the MHRA. The…
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A federal grand jury has indicted five more people for conspiring to commit extortion under the pretense of being U.S. Food & Drug Administration agents. The false FDA agents allegedly threatened Americans, who had purchased drugs from offshore online pharmacies, with incarceration to extort up to $100,000.
The USFDA announced on February 7th that Jose Miguel Mercado Garcia, 29, of the Dominican Republic, Zulai Morales, 25, of the Dominican Republic, Ramona Pichardo, 51, of New York, New York, Maria Curet, 33, of Providence, Rhode Island, and Milton Goris, 32, of Miami, Florida were indicted. Ramon Pichard was arrested on February 10th, while the remaining defendants are at large.
According to the one count indictment, beginning on December 1, 2007, people claiming to represent pharmaceutical distributors located in the Dominican Republic called and emailed US residents offering to sell pharmaceutical drugs. Purchasers of those pharmaceutical drugs from the Dominican Republic distributors were then instructed to pay via either a money wire service or by credit card.
The indictment alleges that after paying, customers would then receive telephone calls from purported United States FDA agents, who in fact were not FDA agents. The false FDA agents allegedly falsely stated that the customers’ orders from the Dominican Republic had been interdicted, and that the customers now owed fines.
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