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Unauthorized prescription drug sellers arraigned for smuggling illegal cancer drugs into US
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Two men were recently arraigned on charges that they smuggled adulterated and misbranded prescription cancer treatments from Turkey and other countries into the United States, and conspired to defraud the United States and the FDA.
The drugs did not meet FDA standards and had not been approved for distribution in the United States.
The FDA led a joint international law enforcement operation that culminated in the arrest of two Turkish citizens — Ozkan Semizoglu and Sabahaddin Akman — in Puerto Rico. A grand jury indicted Semizoglu and Akman on Jan. 16.
John Roth
“This case shows that those who prey on innocent patients in the United States, even from outside our borders, are subject to criminal prosecution,” John Roth, director of the Office of Criminal Investigations in the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs, said in a press release. “The assistance of our international partners was critical in carrying out the undercover operation that led to the arrest of these individuals.”
The indictment charges the two men with one count of conspiracy and three counts of smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. Each smuggling charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and/or fines of up to $250,000.
Semizoglu and Akman obtained the illicit drugs and then used shipping labels to conceal the illegal nature of the shipments, including customs declarations falsely describing the contents as “gifts,” “documents,” or “product samples” with no or low-declared monetary values, according to the FDA.
They also broke large drug shipments into several smaller packages to reduce the likelihood of seizures by US Customs and Border Protection officials, authorities said.