Florida Pharmaceutical Supplier Raided By Feds

Florida Pharmaceutical Supplier Raided By Feds
Company Accused Of Illegal On-Line Prescription Drug Trafficking

POSTED: 6:51 PM EDT October 11, 2003

DAVIE, Fla. -- Federal agents raided a pharmaceutical supplier and seized boxes of pain medication at the company accused of sending prescription drugs to online customers who hadn't seen doctors.

C&H Wholesale Inc. sold at least 5.6 million doses of controlled substances to Internet pharmacies, including its own lifelinepharmacy.com, since May 2002, and the Web site sold 2.9 million doses to online customers in less than three months this year, a complaint said Friday.

Lifeline mailed pills to patients who had only filled out online forms and didn't visit doctors to get a prescription, including an undercover agent who posed as 17-year-old "Brittany" seeking diet pills, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

"The owners, pharmacists and employees all have direct knowledge there is no legitimate physician-patient relationship," DEA investigators wrote.

The DEA suspended the company's federal license to deal in controlled substances in a regulatory action and moved to revoke the license. The company has 30 days to appeal.

C&H issued a statement saying the government has not been clear about the rules for online drug dispensing.

"To this date, the federal and state governments have provided insufficient guidance by which Internet pharmaceutical services can be administered," the statement said. "Yet it may well be the future of how health care prescriptions are filled."

C&H opened in 1999 and became a high-volume wholesaler of the sleeping pill Ambien and diet pills including amphetamines and phentermine, the DEA said. Lifeline opened in February and was filling 1,000 prescriptions a day from 50 online pharmacies. Both operations are owned by Frank and Amada Hernandez.

The same office building was home to RX Network, an Internet pharmacy that had its state license suspended in June.