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20 Nabbed in Internet Pharmacy Crackdown
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
FOXNews.com
WASHINGTON — Twenty people in the United States and abroad
were arrested on charges they ran Internet pharmacies that
illegally shipped narcotics, steroids and amphetamines to
teenagers and other buyers around the world, federal
authorities announced Wednesday.
The arrests were the result of a yearlong investigation by six
federal agencies of online pharmacies that often operate in
the shadows of the Internet, with no fixed address and no way
to track where they are located, Drug Enforcement
Administrator Karen Tandy said.
The drugs weicials from the FBI, Customs, the Internal Revenue
Service (search), Food and Drug Administration (search) and
the Postal Service were to formally announce details of
Operation Cyber Chase at a news conference Wednesday.
Among the organizations targeted was a Philadelphia-based
Internet pharmacy that allegedly smuggled prescription
painkillers, steroids and amphetamines into the United States
from India, Germany, Hungary and elsewhere, repackaged them
and sold them throughout the world, Tandy said.
U.S. arrests took place in Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota, Fla.;
Abilene and Tyler, Texas; New York City and Rochester, N.Y.;
Philadelphia; and Greenville, S.C. Authorities also made
arrests in Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and India.
A study by the Government Accountability Office last
year found it was easy to order drugs online. Some drugs
received from foreign pharmacies were counterfeit and many
came with no instructions or warnings, the GAO said. Others
arrived in damaged or unconventional packaging.
The FDA has led the government's enforcement efforts against
Internet pharmacies as part of its strenuous opposition to the
legalization of imported prescription drugs.
20 held in Internet drug crackdown
AP
Wed, Apr. 20, 2005
At a news conference in Philadelphia, officials said that from July
2003 until April 2005, Brij Bhushan Bansal of India and his son,
Temple University graduate student Akhil Bansal, "headed an
organization that supplied vast quantities of controlled-substance
pharmaceutical drugs and non-controlled prescription drugs in the
U.S. and elsewhere." The official said the Bansal organization in
Philadelphia and India "served as a fulfillment center for numerous
Internet pharmacy websites.
U.S. Says It Cracks Down on Global Illegal Pharmaceutical
Sales
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Twenty people in eight U.S. cities and
three other nations were arrested in the past two days and
charged with helping run a global pharmaceutical trafficking
ring that did business over the Internet, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said at a news
conference in suburban Virginia outside of Washington that
``Operation Cyber Chase'' targeted a Philadelphia-based
organization allegedly headed by two Indian nationals, Brij
Bhusan Bansal and Akhil Bansal. They are charged with
repackaging controlled substances smuggled into the U.S. from
India and other countries and distributing them throughout the
U.S. and the world.
Since July 2003, the Bansal organization distributed about 2.5
million dosages per month of the painkiller Vicodin, anabolic
steroids, amphetamines and other drugs, officials said. The
drug traffickers used about 200 Web sites, officials said. The
arrests were made in Costa Rica, India and Australia.
``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,'' said Karen Tandy, head
of the DEA.
The action is the latest by government and companies to stem
sales of pharmaceuticals over the Internet.
In February, Pfizer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. sued two Internet
pharmacies and sought to seize domain names of about a dozen
others in an attempt to halt sales of counterfeit Viagra, the
top-selling male impotence drug. New York-based Pfizer had
$1.68 billion in Viagra sales last year.
The DEA offers a toll-free hotline and a form on its Web site
for people to report suspected unlawful sales of
pharmaceutical drugs over the Internet.
[Link]
INDIAN HELD FOR SMUGGLING CURRENCY
Tribune of India
Tuesday, August 5, 2003, Chandigarh, India
KATHMANDU: An Indian national from Agra has been arrested here while attempting to
smuggle out Indian currency, the police said. Brij Bhusan Bansal, who was about to depart
from Tribhuvan International Airport on a Kathmandu-New Delhi flight on Saturday, was nabbed
in with Rs 3,94,500 (= negenduizend euro) in 147 bundles of Rs 1,000 notes and 495 packs of Rs 500 notes. — UNI
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Internet Drug Ring Broken
20 Arrested for Illegally Selling Without Prescriptions
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post
Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Drug Enforcement Administration has shut down a major Internet drug ring run
from Philadelphia by two foreign university students who allegedly sold millions
of doses of controlled narcotics, steroids and amphetamines online without
prescriptions, officials said yesterday.
The drugs -- made mostly in India or Hungary and usually delivered to customers
without information about what they were and how they should be taken --
included the popular prescription narcotics Vicodin and OxyContin and the animal
tranquilizer Ketamine, a drug popular during rock music "raves."
A Drug Enforcement
Administration official
makes an arrest in New
York. The DEA
operation resulted in
at least 20 arrests
in the United States
and abroad.
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While officials said they were encouraged by the arrests and the additional
information they are expected to produce, they added that the problem of "rogue"
Internet pharmacies is large and growing. The operation that was closed down
supplied Web sites based in the United States, Costa Rica, Canada and Australia
and shipped out as many as 1,000 packages a day, they said.
The ring delivered as many as 2.5 million doses of narcotics, amphetamines and
steroids every month to "tens of thousands" of American customers and others
abroad, the officials said. They said the group also sold lifestyle drugs such
as Viagra, but traded mostly in DEA-controlled substances. Tandy said it was
especially disturbing that a relative handful of people could illegally divert
such large quantities of potentially dangerous drugs.
According to Tandy and other federal officials, the ring was based in
Philadelphia and run primarily by two Temple University students from India --
one studying computers and the other probably medicine.
Officials identified one of the students as 26-year-old Akhil Bansal and said
his father, Brij Bhusan Bansal, 51, a physician who runs a hospital in Agra,
India, was the primary supplier of the drugs. They identified the second student
as Atul Patil, 32. The father was arrested in India, and the two students, as
well as a Queens, N.Y., couple who repackaged the drugs, were among 13
individuals arrested in the United States. Those arrested here face charges of
illegal importing, money laundering and continuing criminal conspiracy similar
to those typically filed against traditional heroin and cocaine smugglers and
dealers.
The "Bansal operation" did not have its own Web site but supplied 200 sites run
by others, officials said. Most of the drugs were smuggled into the United
States from India as bulk shipments and were repackaged, initially in
Philadelphia and later in Queens. Undercover surveillance showed that as many as
1,000 packages a day were sent from the Queens site using express package
services, officials said.
Hundreds of Web sites advertise their ability to sell controlled drugs without a
prescription or with only a short questionnaire designed to establish a
doctor-patient relationship. John M. Taylor, associate commissioner for
regulatory affairs at the Food and Drug Administration, said these online
consultations are illegal under the laws of most states, and that selling a
controlled drug without a prescription is illegal under federal law.
The FDA is analyzing some of the drugs seized to determine exactly what they
contain and possibly where they come from. Narcotics dispensed without a
prescription are generally advertised online as brand-name products, but most
appear to be generic versions, officials said.
Tandy said the illegal use of prescription narcotics is as much a problem now as
traditional drugs of abuse such as heroin and cocaine, and that "rogue pharmacy
sites fuel the abuse of prescription drugs." She said that Vicodin in
particular, a morphine-based painkiller, has become popular with high school
students.
The drug bust involved at least seven federal agencies and followed an
investigation that took more than a year. Computers with order and delivery
records were seized, and Tandy said further arrests are expected.
The U.S. arrests took place in Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota, Fla., in Abilene
and Tyler, Tex., in New York City and Rochester, N.Y., in Philadelphia and in
Greenville, S.C. Authorities also made arrests in Australia, Costa Rica and
India.
[Link]
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Feds bust alleged Web drug ring
By Donna Leinwand
USA TODAY
4/20/2005
In shutting down the drug ring, U.S. and foreign investigators
seized several million pills and froze 41 bank accounts containing
about $7.4 million.
The seizures represent a tiny fraction of a booming Internet market
in prescription drugs that are being sold illegally through networks
that DEA Administrator Karen Tandy says amount to a new frontier in
drug dealing — one that is particularly accessible to young,
computer-savvy buyers.
A DEA investigator sorts through
confiscated evidence at a
warehouse in New York City.
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Pharmacies that sell controlled drugs without a prescription are
easy to find on the Web. Once they find the sites, buyers can place
an order merely by filling out a questionnaire and providing a
credit card number. The drugs usually arrive in plain brown
wrappers.
Among those arrested was Brij Bhusan Bansal, a doctor in Agra,
India. He is accused of being the leader of the drug ring. The DEA
says he obtained millions of pills from drugmakers in India and
shipped them to the USA.
Also arrested was Bansal's son, Akhil, a graduate student at Temple
University in Philadelphia. DEA investigator Terry Riley said that Akhil Bansal, who is in
the USA on a student visa, managed the operation here. He is accused
of taking orders from operators of Web sites, having pills
repackaged and sorted by operations in New York and Philadelphia,
and submitting customer invoices to a shipping company that mailed
drugs to customers.
The elder Bansal advertised on dozens of Web sites and in Internet
chat rooms. In a chat room for athletes, he offered anabolic
steroids. On porn sites, he advertised Viagra.
The probe began in February 2004, when Airborne Express, a shipping
company, noticed problems with an address and notified police, Riley
said. The package was traced to a packaging and mailing operation in
Chester, Pa. More arrests are likely, he said.
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Feds get tough on Net drugs
Richard Schmitt
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Bansal operation had 100,000 customers worldwide, with 60 to 70
percent of them in the United States, officials said.
Charges against other members of the alleged ring were also unsealed in
federal court in Brooklyn, where many of the drugs were repackaged for
sale.
According to the indictments, the Bansal family solicited business on
Internet bulletin boards and through e-mails to operators of pharmacy Web
sites. Eventually, the drugs were sold through more than 200 sites and
shipped from Chester, Pa., by a felon who went by the alias Leroy Jones.
He also was charged, officials said.
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Bansal drug ring had financial control in Australia
rediff.com,
April 22, 2005
in.rediff.com
The global Internet drug ring being run by Agra-based doctor Brij Bhushan
Bansal had its financial control in Australia where an accused had created
intricate systems to receive payment via the Web and distribute it to
others involved in the racket.
Twenty persons, including six from India, have been arrested so far in
coordinated worldwide raids conducted by American Drug Enforcement Agency.
In India, DEA was assisted by the Narcotics Control Bureau.
Officials of NCB and DEA believe Australian Shakleton was the man who held
all the global strands of the racket together.
Shakleton managed the Web sites through which orders were taken for supply
of narcotics, steroids and other psychotropic drugs. He collected the
payment through credit cards, arranged the supply of the drugs and then
sent money to others, including Bansal who supplied the drugs from India.
After the racket was smashed, Shakleton fled to Europe where enforcement
agencies are on his trail, NCB sources said.
Bansal, the main supplier, was arrested in Agra on Thursday. While his son
Akhil was held in the US, his daughter Shivani Aggarwal was arrested in
Jaipur.
Shivani's husband Yatin and father-in-law Kishan Aggarwal were also
arrested.
Over 500,000 tablets of psychotropic substances and prescription drugs
like Valium and Diazepam worth crores of rupees were recovered from them,
NCB sources said.
NCB Deputy Director General Rajiv Walia said more raids were likely to be
carried out as part of the mop-up operations in the coming days in various
parts of the country.
DEA's 'Operation Cyber Chase', which resulted in the unearthing of the
global racket, was a year-long Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
investigation that targeted international Internet pharmaceutical
traffickers operating in the US, India, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.
Besides India and the US, arrests were made in San Jose and Costa Rica
also.
According to the sources, Bansals allegedly smuggled controlled substances
into the US from India and other countries. These were then re-packaged in
the US and distributed in America and other parts of the world.
Since July 2003, they allegedly distributed approximately 2.5 million
dosage units of Schedule II-V pharmaceutical controlled substances,
including Vicodin (hydrocodone), anabolic steroids, and amphetamines, per
month.
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How clinic shut doors, opened shop
Bansal among 20 arrested in joint raids by DEA & NCB
ADITYA KAUL & PRATUL SHARMA
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Indian Express
www.indianexpress.com
AGRA/NEW DELHI, APRIL 22: On July 16, 2003, Dr Brij Bhushan Bansal
posted an advertisement on the Internet, introducing himself as a
wholesale distributor and supplier of generic and branded medicines
manufactured by top pharmaceutical companies of India.
Bansal, who also advertised Sildenafil Citrate (generic Viagra),
even gave his address—Brij & Co. B-50 Kamla Nagar, Agra—unlike
several others who preferred the anonymity of e-mails on the web.
Less than two years later, after a joint operation by the US agency,
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and India’s Narcotics Control
Bureau (NCB), he was arrested along with 19 others including his son
and daughter for running perhaps the biggest illicit Internet
pharmacy. They allegedly shipped psychotropic drugs, amphetamines
and anabolic steroids directly to buyers without a presciption as
required by the US and Indian laws.
Residents of Agra’s upscale Kamla Nagar knew all along that there
was something secretive about Dr Bansal, who has been staying there
for over 30 years. Bansal had closed his clinic about 10 years ago
as the business was bad. However, in the last few months, he had
started investing heavily in property and spent a lot on renovating
his clinic on Moti Lal Nehru Road.
He hardly interacted with neighbours. ‘‘We would sometimes meet him
at social occasions but he didn’t talk much,’’ said a resident of B
block.
A pharmaceutical employee, who has known Bansal for 15 years,
remembers how it started. ‘‘In 2003, June or July, I don’t remember
the exact month, Bansal came to my house and said he wanted to talk
to me. I took him to a separate room. He asked me whether I could
help him procure sedatives,’’ he said. ‘‘I was shocked to hear that
he wanted to purchase something like 10,000 boxes of Alprazolam, a
sedative.’’
Bansal had just been making enquiries at that time. He would soon
establish a flourishing trade—and his lifestyle would change. ‘‘He
installed a number of surveillance cameras and put up grills at the
entrance of his house,’’ said a neighbour. He claimed he’d seen
postal department vans making visits at night. ‘‘At night, when the
entire colony was asleep there would be light on his terrace. We
knew some work was done but we never suspected this,’’ he said.
Dr Bansal was arrested along with an associate, Anil, and a domestic
help Himanshu in Agra. His son Akhil, who the DEA says is the
kingpin of the racket, was arrested in the US and daughter Shivani
was arrested in Jaipur.
While Akhil allegedly handled the operations in US, Bansal Sr
established a network in Agra from where he would purchase
prescription drugs and ship to various countries including the US.
Bansal, now in NCB custody, is admitted to a local hospital after he
complained of chest pain. Agra police refused to comment on the case
as they they did not have any role to play in the arrest.
‘‘The accused used to buy the medicines from manufactures and then
supply abroad after negotiating through the Internet. They took
orders from over 200 websites all over the world,’’ said Rajiv
Walia, Deputy Director General of NCB.
Initial investigations show that Bansal was assisted by an Indian
couple based in the US and an Australian national. Investigators
have detected cash worth of Rs 4.5 crore in the Mumbai accounts of
the couple, arrested in the US. The NCB has also identified about
4-5 companies that were supplying drugs in bulk to Bansal. His bank
accounts have been seized and cash around Rs 1.5 crore have been
detected.
In Delhi alone, the NCB seized 3.3 million tablets of controlled and
psychotropic drugs from a courier service based in Sant Nagar, South
Delhi, from where Bansal sent the consignments abroad.
The operation began after some consignments were siezed at the
Philadelphia International Airport in last February.
[Link]
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US officials bust gang distributing Indian drugs through Net
pharmacies
The Peninsula On-line: Qatar's leading English Daily
4/23/2005
IANS
In New Delhi, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) said drug ring
fronted by an Indian family was a well-oiled operation with over
100,000 clients. According to the officials, the illegal business
was worth over Rs100m.
Two days after simultaneous raids in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur by the
NCB, what has come to light is that an Agra-based general
practitioner, Brij Bhushan Bansal spearheaded the racket. He worked
with his relatives in Jaipur for procuring orders from overseas
customers.
Bansal’s son, Akhil, based in Philadelphia, managed the US end of
the business by selling the drugs to the clients. “The client base
itself comprised over 100,000 people, which was growing rapidly.
Most of them were from the US who ordered controlled and
psychotropic drugs on the net,” said Rajeev Walia, NCB’s deputy
director general (enforcement) in Delhi.
Since most of the drugs were sold without a prescription, mandatory
under US law, the burgeoning racket was helping the Bansals
flourish. Some of these controlled drugs included painkillers like
vicodine and oxycontin while psychotropic drugs such as valium and
codeine were also shipped out.
For the last six months, both the DEA and NCB were monitoring the
movements of the Bansal clan and keeping a tab on the bulk transfer
of drugs from India. Select courier companies in Delhi were
earmarked by Bansal to transfer these drugs after they were labelled
falsely.
“To escape the vigil of the US authorities, most of the drugs
exported were sent to offshore venues, brought back to the mainland
and then repackaged either in Philadelphia or New York before being
sent to internet customers,” said a NCB official.
K C Aggarwal, Bansal’s in-law in Jaipur who has also been arrested,
used to take orders on the net. Helping him in this flourishing
illegal business was his son Jayant and daughter-in-law, Julie, the
NCB said. “The Aggarwals used to take the orders online while Bansal
stored the drugs in bulk,” Walia said.
In the raids conducted so far, huge quantities of psychotropic drugs
have been seized from Bansal’s godown and business premises in Agra.
In Delhi, the NCB’s enforcement wing swooped down on two courier
companies and arrested the director of Renaissance Courier Service,
Praveen Dua. “We are trying to find the other courier companies,”
NCB official Avinash Kaul said.
The NCB is yet to arrest Bansal, who has taken ill and been admitted
to a local hospital in Agra. “He will obviously fall sick. He could
not imagine a situation where the racket has been busted and his
close relatives arrested,” an official said. Investigations are on
to find out if shipments were made to other countries besides the US
and Costa Rica.
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Feds: Internet drugs ring cracked
U.S.: Rx medicines came from India
By JIM SMITH
Philadelphia Daily News
Mon, Sep. 19, 2005
Dr. Akhil Bansal was one of 17 people indicted by a federal grand
jury in Philadelphia last April for allegedly taking part in "an
international conspiracy to import and distribute" prescription
drugs, using the Internet.
Five additional defendants were charged in a "related indictment" in
New York.
The major charges in the Philadelphia case include conspiracy to
distribute and import controlled substances, operating a continuing
criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Federal authorities seized more than $6 million from defendants'
accounts in foreign and U.S. bank accounts.
"This case shows us how the Internet has opened the door to an
unregulated universe from which anyone with access to a computer can
purchase anything from anti-anxiety drugs to anabolic steroids,"
said U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan, the Philadelphia-area's top
federal lawman, when the cases were made public.
Authorities contend that the drugs were smuggled into the United
States from India.
"The Web site owners do not require any prescription for the
purchase of these drugs, which is contrary to law.
"The drugs are manufactured abroad, do not bear required labels and
warnings, and are being imported without Customs declarations or
payment of duty," said Christine Konieczny, a Lower Merion police
officer assigned to a DEA Task Force.
Bansal, his father, Dr. Brij Bansal; a sister, Julie Agarwal; and
her husband, Yatindra Agarwal, were charged with shipping medicines
manufactured in India to Internet pharmacies' customers in the
United States.
The other relatives are all in India.
[Link]
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
