People overdosing on fentanyl pills from fake online pharmacies

U.S. authorities recently targeted a drug trafficking ring that set up fake online pharmacies selling counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine, underscoring the increasing sophistication of such networks and the difficulty of combating them.

Francisco Alberto López Reyes controlled “every facet of the plan” from his base in the Dominican Republic, US federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment announced on September 30. This included monitoring at least nine fraudulent online pharmacies used to sell counterfeit Oxycodone pills laced with illegal fentanyl. , as well as Adderall and Xanax tainted with methamphetamine, according to court documents.

Customers often thought they were purchasing legitimate medicines. At least nine people who bought drugs from López’s network suffered fatal overdoses. One victim, a veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard, died after taking a counterfeit M30 Oxycodone pill, commonly known as “blues” because of its color, which was laced with a lethal amount of illegal fentanyl.

“The proliferation of fake online pharmacies is fueling the fentanyl epidemic in this country,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement press release. “(López) and his lieutenants operated a global network of these websites and aggressively marketed, manufactured, sold and distributed millions of deadly fentanyl pills intended to mimic legitimate prescription drugs.”

SEE ALSO: Prescription pills containing meth and fentanyl sold in pharmacies in Northern Mexico: report

López is said to have operated several so-called pill mills in and around New York City. Prosecutors claim the group was able to produce as many as 200,000 counterfeit pills per 24 hours. They used dyes and other specialized equipment to “imitate the color, shape, size and markings of commercially manufactured prescription pills,” according to the indictment.

The network relied heavily on manipulative marketing techniques to sell the counterfeit drugs online and through encrypted messaging platforms. The online pharmacies seemed legitimate and boasted low prices, even offering free shipping, customer support, and a 30-day return policy. López and his associates mailed out unsolicited free samples and contacted customers daily by phone and email to drive more sales.

InSight crime analysis

The increase in the number of fake online pharmacies selling counterfeit prescription pills is a relatively new phenomenon that poses significant problems for law enforcement, even as the number of U.S. drug overdose deaths declines.

“This represents a new phase in this phenomenon,” said Ben Westhoff, a synthetic drug expert and author of “Fentanyl Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic.”

“These (counterfeit) pills were traditionally sold on the streets, but counterfeit pills are now being sold online in a sophisticated manner,” he added. “It’s a disturbing trend.”

SEE ALSO: Drug overdose deaths in the US are declining, and here’s why

Drug overdose deaths in the United States, largely caused by synthetic opioids such as illicit fentanyl, fell by about 10% between 2022 and 2023, according to preliminary data recently updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was the first year-on-year decline since 2018.

However, the online evolution of the market poses a serious risk to continuing that downward trend, due to the high percentage of the US population that uses prescription pills and buys them online, either to save money or because they cannot get a prescription.

But this is not just an American problem. Last year, a team of US researchers discovered that legitimate pharmacies in northwestern Mexico were selling products counterfeit prescription pills laced with illegal fentanyl and methamphetamine. Although a number of powerful crime groups produce these synthetic drugs, it is still not clear how they entered the pharmacy supply chain. Federal health authorities did not approve any of the products, whose packaging was sometimes written in English.

Mexican organized crime groups have also profited from the sale of counterfeit weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, which can lead to serious health problems and even death. A Reuters research found that criminal groups rely on corrupt actors at pharmaceutical companies to create fake batch numbers used to sell counterfeits. Authorities have seized the contaminated Ozempic in several countries around the world, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Britain, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, Serbia and Ukraine.

Yet law enforcement faces increasing obstacles as these networks begin selling their illegal products online. If one website shuts down, another can easily be created using an encrypted domain.

“Finding these companies is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Westhoff told InSight Crime. “There are probably many more of them that will be very difficult to track down.”

Featured image: A screenshot of one of the fake online pharmacies selling counterfeit Oxycodone pills. Credit: US Attorneys.