OTTAWA: A newly unsealed federal indictment charges a major Canadian online pharmacy and a number of other related entities and people, including an American doctor, with conspiring to allegedly smuggle mislabeled and unapproved prescription drugs into the United States.
The indictment’s highlights include allegations that some of the drugs sold to doctors by CanadaDrugs.com—ones used to treat cancer—were counterfeit, and that $78 million worth of medication was shipped to the U.S. as part of the scheme. In some cases, prosecutors claim, cancer drugs that were meant to be kept cold were not, and CanadaDrugs tried to cover up that fact.
But only one of the people charged in connection with the case, Ram Kamath of Illinois, has actually been arrested so far. Kamath, who is charged with a single count of conspiracy to smuggle goods into the U.S. was freed without bond, and recently was allowed to take a cruise to Alaska.
The allegations against Kamath are significantly less serious than the ones made against other defendants, and he faces the least possible maximum sentence, of five years in prison. He is accused primarily of agreeing to store temporarily a small amount of drugs in his refrigerator on behalf of Canada Drugs after the company told him they were recalling that shipment.
