Pharmaceutical distributors charged for funneling abused drugs to Houston pharmacies – Houston Public Media

Mark Lennihan/AP

Several pharmaceutical executives were arrested and charged for funneling millions of commonly abused drugs to Houston-area “pill mills,” officials said.

The United States Attorney’s Office calls it the largest ever criminal enforcement action targeting distributors of pharmaceutical opioids and commonly abused prescription drugs.

“These cases build on this district’s history of systematically dismantling pill-mill clinics, pharmacies and the often-violent drug-trafficking organizations responsible for selling these pills in our community,” Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas said in a statement.

Pharmaceutical distributors allegedly funneled nearly 70 million opioid pills and 30 million doses of prescription drugs to several Houston-area pill-mill pharmacies. The drugs had an estimated street value of $1.3 billion, officials said.

“The distributors that sourced pills into the Houston area may be located across the country, but they targeted Houston, helping to make it a known ‘hot zone’ for drug diversion,” Hamdani said.

Five of the defendants are executives of pharmaceutical distributors, another five are sales associates.

Six of the 10 defendants have already pleaded guilty to their role in the operation.

Court documents assert the distributors knew that Houston was a “hot zone” for the diversion of drugs onto the black market. They specifically targeted pill mill pharmacies in the area that would pay above market rates for the commonly abused drugs, Nicole Argentieri, a principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s criminal division said.

Three pharmacy operators who sold the drugs purchased from the distributors also pleaded guilty. For unlawful distribution charges, they could face up to 20 years in prison.

A conspiracy to defraud the United States carriers a five-year prison sentence, and conspiracy to use a communications facility to further the commission of drugs has a four-year prison sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Our message is clear,” Argentieri said. “If you use your business to illegally distribute poisonous substances into our communities, we will hold you accountable, no matter how high you are on the corporate ladder.”

“We will use every tool at our disposal, including cutting-edge data analytics, to uncover your misconduct,” Argentieri said.

The Department of Justice fraud section’s Texas Strike Force used data to identify distributors who were selling the most commonly abused drugs pharmaceutical in Houston.

Oxycodone, hydrocodone and hydromorphone were available in several strengths, but the distributors allegedly sold the drugs in their most abused forms.

“The defendants, including pharmaceutical drug distributors, allegedly exploited the opioid crisis for profit— selling dangerous and addictive drugs to pill-mill pharmacies at above-market prices, knowing that the drugs would end up on the black market,” Argentieri said.