Ohio Man to Spend Five Years in Prison for Role in Counterfeit Pill Scheme

To save money, some people purchase their prescription drugs online, but as a story recently reported on Local12 in Cincinnati shows, by doing so, you are playing Russian roulette with your life.

Cincinnati resident Shoaib Haroon was recently sentenced to five years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to sell people counterfeit drugs. Mr. Haroon received and filled the orders out of his home. He was observed mailing 80 packages each day out of the same post office. Inside the packages were counterfeit pills in plastic bags. Postal Inspector Thomas Halsell said, “They weren’t marked with what they were. They had no instructions with them. They had no side effects. They had no warnings.”

United States Postal Inspection Service Sr. Chemist Dale Forrester emphasized that “You may receive the actual compound and you may not. You may receive something that is deadly to you.” A search of Haroon’s house found additional pills, credit card numbers, and passports. Law enforcement officials stressed how risky it could be to purchase prescription medicines online.

If you want to purchase your prescription drugs online, make sure to always purchase them from a website whose address ends in the top-level domain .pharmacy.