Man charged for running an illegal online pharmacy

May 26, 2008 09:17 GMT  ·  By

The concept of online pharmacies sounds pretty attractive because patients could receive medical advice without having to visit the doctor. However, Jorge Alan Rodriguez Sanchez took the online pharmacy idea to another level: he established an illegal drug store online in order to sell all kinds of prescription based drugs, including Xanax, Valium, Oxycontin and Vicodin, obviously, without prescription. For those of you who don't know, Oxycondone is a pain killer and, according to the US Department of Justice, it was one of the best-sellers within the online pharmacy belonging to Sanchez.

The way the online pharmacy worked is pretty simple: interested buyers could contact the 32-year-old man by email and ask for the medicine needed. If available, Sanchez sent the transaction details by email. Once the money reached his account, the drugs were delivered from somewhere near Southern California to locations in the United States, the DoJ informs. Sanchez cashed his money from a Western Union branch in Mexico, but most of his transactions were made in the United States.

In case he is found guilty, Sanchez may get a sentence of no less than 20 years in prison and a fine of approximately $250,000 for each charged count, DoJ writes. "The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation," the same source adds.

Illegal online pharmacies are not something new on the web and prescription-based drugs could be easily bought by any Internet user. Just take a look in the spam folder of your email account and you should be able to see tons of messages promoting forbidden medicine, including Xanax and Valium. The worst thing about this is that some people actually buy these drugs even if persons died after having suffered seizures and other side effects.