November 25, 2024: A new money laundering case is tied to online pharmacies selling counterfeit pills
Domestic News
A California man allegedly processed payments for foreign online pharmacies selling fentanyl and meth pills.
Screenshot of a text from a dissatisfied buyer. (U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts.
U.S. attorneys in Massachusetts charged a Californian man with money laundering for running Axson Engineering, a company that allegedly processed customer payments for foreign online pharmacies selling fake prescription medicines made of fentanyl and methamphetamine. Investigators believe that Axson accounts received $11.5 million from U.S. residents between January 2021 and August 2024.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned nine Mexican nationals involved in drug trafficking and money laundering, including several who allegedly trafficked counterfeit prescription pills made with fentanyl.
Kaiser Health News revisited Florida’s ambitions to lower drug costs by importing medicines from Canada, noting that no medicines had been imported “nearly a year” after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved the program.
International News
Counterfeit drugs and medicine smuggling in India, the Philippines, Greece, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
Authorities in India seized 30,000 tablets of counterfeit antibiotics during a raid in Uttar Pradesh.
The Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that it had seized counterfeit medicines worth P21.9 million (US$371,500) through the “Oplan Katharos” initiative as of September 2024. The operation, which was launched in November 2023, targets counterfeit and unapproved health products.
Greek police arrested a man accused of smuggling pregabalin tablets from Greek pharmacies into France by mail. According to authorities last week's seizure of 3,300 tablets was one of 55 shipments made since 2021.
Senegalese custom agents seized 59 cartons of fake antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs between November 12 and 15, 2024.
Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority made arrests and seized 200,000 Captagon pills, and more than 445,000 pregabalin and tramadol pills in Jeddah, Riyadh and at the border post with the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi agents with seized medicines, November 2024 (Saudi Gazette)