Internet pharmacy deleted

[palmspringsbum]

Article published Jan 13, 2007

Internet pharmacy deleted

<span class=postbold>Operators charged with selling prescription medicines illegally</span>

The Wilmington Star

A Wilmington-based "rogue Internet pharmacy" has been shut down and its operators face criminal charges following an 18-month investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

United Care Pharmacy sold millions of dollars worth of weight-loss drugs and other controlled substances online to people who did not consult a doctor before ordering them, DEA Special Agent Casey McEnry said Friday.

The individuals were "cyber-authorized" by various doctors throughout the U.S. The doctors, in turn, were paid from $5 to $10 per person.

"They never saw any patients," McEnry said. "Customers are getting these prescriptions filled without seeing a doctor."

Charged Thursday with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and money laundering crimes were Andrew Thomas Russo, 48, of Chimney Lane, the former chief operating officer of UCP; Denis Leborgne, 42, of McQuillan Drive, the company's former chief technical officer; David John, 41, of Nashville, Tenn., the former chief financial officer; and John Tuite, 81, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., UCP's pharmacist.

The case will be prosecuted in the Northern District of California. An investigation was opened after a San Jose woman reported her husband was receiving phentermine in the mail, said McEnry, who works out of the San Francisco DEA office.

McEnry said about 90 percent of UCP's business was for diet medication, and the majority of that was phentermine, a habit-forming drug used primarily as an appetite suppressant. UCP had several thousand customers in the Bay Area, she said.

Russo and Leborgne made initial court appearances Friday in U.S. District Court in Raleigh. The two other defendants appeared in federal courtrooms in their areas.

Search warrants were served Thursday by Wilmington-based DEA agents at their homes.

"We seized a number of high-value assets, assets acquired as a result of profits acquired from their drug-trading activity," Wilmington Resident Agent in Charge Emmett R. Highland said. He declined to further describe those assets.

Identifying illegal pharmacies is the focus of other ongoing investigations, Highland said.

"We see more and more of these rogue pharmacies on the Internet, and people need to know we are also on the Internet and the DEA is watching," he said.

UCP operated a sister company in Fayetteville called Quicfill, which also has been shut down, McEnry said.

Neither company could be found online Friday. Russo and Leborgne could not be reached for comment.

"The motive here is pure greed, and they are doing it at the expense of the public," McEnry said. "It's definitely a new trend on the Internet. You get whole different kinds of investigations, and we have to adopt our scales to the Internet."

UCP obtained a DEA retail pharmacy registration in June 2005 for 2420 S. 17th St., Unit C, in Wilmington.

The registration was surrendered in March 2006 after the N.C. Board of Pharmacy executed a summary suspension order, according to the criminal indictment in the case.

The company was incorporated in Nevada in May 2005. UCP was set up for the defendants "to obtain large quantities of funds, thereby enriching themselves, in exchange for distributing and dispensing controlled substances for other than a legitimate medical purpose and not in the usual course of professional practice," the indictment states.

Misuse of prescription drugs is second only to marijuana as the nation's most prevalent drug problem, and the annual average number of people using pain relievers non-medically for the first time exceeds the number of new marijuana users, according to a study released in 2006 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

DEA officials said illegal pharmacies can be reported by calling (877) RX-Abuse or by going to www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov and filling out a form.

Ken Little: 343-2389
ken.little@starnewsonline.com

[Jack_n_marin]

Hi Craig, where are you living now? I met you in Palm Springs at a MAPP meeting. You took me to get my car in Temecula if that rings a bell. I would like to talk to you. I am living in marin county now. Jack Baker

[palmspringsbum]

Hi jack. Take a look at my website: www.palmspringsbum.com and my blog, blog.palmspringsbum.com

I've been sleeping under a bush or on the sidewalk, in Santa Cruz for almost two years now.

SAVE ME!!!

(yes, I remember who you are)

[Jack_n_marin]

Hi, I can come to Santa Cruz this friday. I would come before but I can't really do it til friday. Jack

[palmspringsbum]

I hope you can come. It will be great to see you.

I tried to reply via private message and got an error. I haven't had enough traffic here to get all the bugs out. I have a cell phone but I'm not going to put my number here.

I just thought I'd post a reply before I tried to fix the private messaging, in case I screw things up for a few hours, or a few days.

So what are you up to these days?

If I can't get the private messaging working so I can send you my cell number that way, I'll give you a call in a couple of days.

With my luck, after sleeping on the street for over a year with a cell-phone and computer, I will get robbed tonight and not be able to get in touch with you.

But unless they haul me off to jail, I will be here, and not that hard to find. It's not that big a town.

And being hauled off to jail is not all that remote a possibility.

I've been writing quite a bit on the Santa Cruz Sentinel's forums. If you have any interest in looking at that you can access it here: forums.santacruzsentinel.com

[palmspringsbum]

Well, I got the PMs working, sorta, and there should be two for you.

When I try to read a PM I get a debug error, but all I have to do is refresh the screen and it works.

So if you get some kind of error, try refreshing the screen.

I don't know why it does that.