Illinois Man Charged in Counterfeit Drug Bust

Thousands of fake valium found in an Illinois business after FDA and CBP intercept a United States Postal Service package.

Authorities charged an Illinois businessman with unlawful possession of a controlled substance after authorities discovered a package, sent to his address, contained bogus drugs.

According to a report from Sun-Times Media story:

• Bond has been set at $30,000 for a Naperville man found in possession of thousands of counterfeit Valium pills, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office announced Monday.

• Amin Rupani, 40, of the 2600 block of Salix Circle in Naperville, has been charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a release from the sheriff’s office said. He was arrested at his computer business, Precision Technologies.

• The Sheriff’s Police Special Operations Unit began its investigation into Rupani’s activities after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, detained a package containing counterfeit Valium pills. The 20,000 pills packed inside plastic containers had Rupani’s business address, but a fake name.

• On Dec. 9, sheriff’s office investigators, along with agents from the FDA and the U.S. Postal Service, wired the Valium package with a monitoring and tracking device and conducted a controlled delivery to Rupani’s office. When officers received a radio transmission signal that the package had been opened, they entered the business and placed Rupani under arrest.

• Rupani told investigators he received the packages from a friend who lives in Karachi, Pakistan, and that he was told the pills were vitamins and weight loss drugs. Forensic tests of the seized pills show they contain the active ingredient in Valium, but they were manufactured by a criminal enterprise in China. The estimated street value of the drugs is $200,000.

• Rupani admitted he forwarded the packages sent by his co-conspirator to addresses in Texas and California on a regular basis, using his company’s UPS account. After a search of Rupani’s business, officers also recovered nine plastic bags containing an estimated 20,000 light green triangular pills, suspected counterfeit Xanax, and a box of diet pills.

Kudos to the FDA and CBP for the interception of this particular shipment but it begs the question as to the extent of the greater issue of these types of dangerous fakes within the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Certainly this particular bust must be but a tiny fraction of a much larger pipeline of counterfeit drugs that are introduced into the United States each day.

This type of crime is proliferating at an epic pace given the high profits and extremely low risk of getting caught or doing time. In this particular instance because the fakes were of a controlled substance, the suspect may be in for a significant penalty, however those that fake prescription drugs like Viagra have fewer penalties.

Members of the legitimate pharmaceutical supply chain must take proactive measures from these types of deadly fake products ending up in their inventories.

To read the entire Sun-Times Media story, visit: http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/news/crime/2828874-418/rupani-pills-valium-business-office.html

To learn more about anti-counterfeiting technologies for the pharmaceutical supply chain, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/