Peddling counterfeit prescription pills that often contain deadly fentanyl or methamphetamine (unlike the legitimate pharmaceuticals they pretend to be), the murderers who run these operations care more about their money than they do about your life.
In the process, they have turned your friendly, helpful internet information highway into a turnpike of death, while spreading their fatal poison far and wide, becoming filthy rich in the process.
In September, as part of an operation called “Press Your Luck” (pun obviously intended—pill presses, get it?), law enforcement rounded up 18 people involved in a massive, pill-counterfeiting operation based in New York, but with its evil tentacles reaching all the way to India, China and the Dominican Republic.
If convicted, ringleader Francisco Alberto Lopez Reyes could face up to life in prison for the scheme, which murdered at least nine people.
They died overdosing on drugs they never meant to take. The medications they thought would help them instead ended their lives.
These website operators are going to great lengths to make the websites look like legitimate online pharmacies.
This was no small operation: Law enforcement confiscated 10 industrial pill presses and approximately 625,000 counterfeit pills—most of which contained fentanyl, para-fluorofentanyl and/or methamphetamine—along with molds obtained from China to exactly duplicate legitimate brand-name pharmaceuticals. In total, they seized some 255 pounds of para-fluorofentanyl, 100 pounds of fentanyl and 215 pounds of methamphetamine in pill, powder and crystal form.
These pill-press operations were capable of producing 100,000 fake pills every 12 hours. Operating just five days a week, the confiscated machines could produce 75 million pills per year—pills which appeared to be the same as legitimate pharmaceuticals—of some 40 different counterfeited drugs in all.
Pill counterfeiters use specialized stamping molds and dyes to produce knockoff drugs that can only be proven fake by chemical analysis.
Made possible by consumers’ self-diagnosis from the internet and a desire to save money or obtain drugs without prescriptions, such “discount” operations set up phony but genuine-appearing online pharmacy fronts like “Pharmacy Stores Online” and “Care Online Store.”
The DEA warns that many of these sites “purport to be legitimate, US-based or FDA-approved sites, but are actually working with drug traffickers to fulfill online orders with fake pills. These website operators are going to great lengths to make the websites look like legitimate online pharmacies—they offer 24-hour customer service, post online reviews and safety facts and offer deep discounts to deceive customers into believing they were buying from a reputable business.”
But the “Press Your Luck” operation, no matter the size of the bust, was just a small drop in a very big bucket: There are over 35,000 online pharmacy operations out there, and a staggering 95 percent of them are illegal.
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health said, “The number of online pharmacies has grown exponentially over the last two decades with the rapid expansion of the internet and patients’ increasing acceptance of online information for self-diagnosis and their desire to reduce healthcare costs.”
They estimated the market size of online pharmacies at $68 billion in 2021, likely to reach $206 billion by 2028.
It’s hard to believe it could get worse than that. But it can—and did.
Just how deadly is fentanyl, the drug found in many of Reyes’ counterfeit pills? Addiction Group estimates that 107,000 Americans died from overdoses in 2021, and 71,000 of those were directly from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. Musicians Tom Petty and Prince are among celebrities who died from fentanyl.
The indictment for the “Press Your Luck” operation notes that pills were sold to “tens of thousands” of patients online and, after purchase, the fake pill operators would “bombard customers with aggressive and manipulative marketing tactics to pressure their victims to order more illegal pills,” including providing “unsolicited free samples.”
“Investigators uncovered illicit, clandestine drug labs operating in residential basements and seized fentanyl from parcel facilities where day-to-day mail is processed,” Homeland Security Investigations agent William S. Walker said. “We further uncovered strategies allegedly used by those who deal death to exploit parcel systems in furtherance of their illegal enterprise.
“We stand shoulder to shoulder with grieving families who were forced to say goodbye to their loved ones too soon.”
It’s hard to believe it could get worse than that. But it can—and did.
Last year, in a Bronx daycare center, three children were seriously injured and one 22-month-old baby died from ingestion of fentanyl because criminals were running a fentanyl operation inside the daycare center.
“In September 2023, four children at a Bronx daycare were poisoned by fentanyl,” US Attorney Damian Williams said. “The children were seriously injured and one baby died. This happened because, as they admitted in court, Felix Herrera Garcia and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes operated an illegal fentanyl operation out of the center, where they processed the deadly drugs for sale. We said at the time that this case shocks the conscience of the city, and now Herrera Garcia and Parra Paredes have been brought to justice for this heinous crime.”
“To celebrate your child’s birthday in a cemetery is no easy thing,” the little boy’s mother, Zoila Dominici, said.
The DEA warns: “These companies operate illegally, deliberately deceiving American customers into believing they are purchasing safe, regulated medications when they are actually selling fake, counterfeit pills made with fentanyl or methamphetamine. Fake medications can lead to serious health risks, including harmful side effects, ineffective treatment and even death.”
It’s the Wild West on the internet.
Be careful out there.
