20 busted in e-pharmacy takedown

Bitter pill to swallow

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 21st April 2005 16:04 GMT

Twenty people have been arrested as part of an international crackdown on the sale of prescription drugs online.

The arrests - in the US, India, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean - formed part of a year-long investigation targeting e-traffickers who distributed drugs using "rogue" internet pharmacies.

Drugs shipped by these illegal drug stores included narcotics, amphetamines and anabolic steroids which were sent directly to people who were not examined by a doctor first.

The investigation, led by the US's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), found that those arrested used more than 200 web sites to peddle their drugs.

Said DEA administrator Karen Tandy: "For too long the internet has been an open medicine cabinet with cyber drug dealers illegally doling out a vast array of narcotics, amphetamines, and steroids.

"In this first major international enforcement action against online rogue pharmacies and their sources of supply, we've logged these traffickers off the Internet," she said. ®