FedEx charged with assisting illegal pharmacies

S

straightrazor

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 25, 2013
Messages
149
Location
amazed by duality
Federal authorities on Thursday charged FedEx with assisting illegal pharmacies by knowingly delivering painkillers and other dangerous drugs to customers without prescriptions.

The 15-count indictment was filed in federal court in San Francisco, and the Department of Justice announced the charges in Washington, D.C. The indictment alleges that FedEx Corp. conspired with two related online pharmacies for 10 years ending in 2010.

The Memphis, Tennessee-based delivery company is accused of shipping powerful sleeping aid Ambien, anti-anxiety medications Valium and Xanax, and other drugs to customers who had no legitimate medical need and lacked valid prescriptions.

FedEx insists it did nothing wrong.

"We will plead not guilty. We will defend against this attack on the integrity and good name of FedEx and its employees," company spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald said in a written statement. "FedEx transports more than 10 million packages a day. The privacy of our customers is essential to the core of our business. This privacy is now at risk."

Beginning in 2004, FedEx was warned "on no less than six different occasions" that illegal Internet pharmacies were using its services to distribute prescription drugs, the indictment said. Those warnings extended to senior management at the company, the filing said.

In one instance, FedEx knew the Drug Enforcement Administration shut down one pharmacy, but continued to ship packages from its affiliates.

FedEx's Fitzgerald said U.S. prosecutors are asking that the company assume responsibility for the legality of millions of packages a day.

Company accused of knowingly shipping medical drugs to people without prescriptions; FedEx says it did nothing wrong

"We are a transportation company. We are not law enforcement," he said.

FedEx first disclosed the federal investigation in a regulatory filing in November 2012. The company said at that time it had done nothing wrong and intended to fight any charges.

Rival shipping company UPS Inc. paid $40 million last year to resolve similar allegations, and the Atlanta-based company said it would "take steps" to block illicit online drug dealers from using its delivery service.

Both companies said in regulatory filings that they were served with grand jury subpoenas between 2007 and 2009.

The investigation of the country's two largest shippers stems from a blitz against online pharmacies that was launched in 2005 in San Francisco. Since then, dozens of arrests have been made, thousands of websites shuttered, and tens of millions of dollars and pills seized worldwide as investigators continue to broaden the probe beyond the operators.

Google Inc. agreed to pay $500 million to settle allegations by the Justice Department that it profited from ads for illegal online pharmacies.

A federal jury in 2012 convicted three men of operating illegal pharmacies that used FedEx and UPS to deliver drugs without proper prescriptions. Seven others were convicted in San Francisco previously.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/17/fedex-indicted-drugshipments.html
 
Keeping pushing Uncle Sam. Way to represent the American people. Way to wipe your ass with the US Constitution, with basic human rights, and with your credibility towards your allies which you spy on. Way to look the other way when an ally requested help regarding something which wasn't lucrative enough for you to bother. Way to usher WW3 ever closer because you can't keep your noses out of matters which are absolutely none of your business and which do not concern you.
 
Haha wow, this is so retarded! The Feds are abusing their power in so many Un-Constitutional ways. The America we knew is no more. Welcome to the North American Union. Do you really think Obama cares about America? LOL Of course not. Him and his stupid minion elitists pushing the new world order down everyones throat it's so fucked. Hell, we don't even have free speech anymore. I wouldn't even be surprised if a fucking government troll was on here and saw my post on how I am anti-obama. Oh shit, did I just say that?!
 
treed_85 said:
Haha wow, this is so retarded! The Feds are abusing their power in so many Un-Constitutional ways. The America we knew is no more. Welcome to the North American Union. Do you really think Obama cares about America? LOL Of course not. Him and his stupid minion elitists pushing the new world order down everyones throat it's so fucked. Hell, we don't even have free speech anymore. I wouldn't even be surprised if a fucking government troll was on here and saw my post on how I am anti-obama. Oh shit, did I just say that?!
Click to expand...


You're absolutely correct about everything........I won't be surprised if this country turns out like China where if you speak against the govt, etc....you will be in trouble.
 
Last edited:
Two points I want to make...
1.(Almost) ALL USPS mail is handled by FedEx at some point since FedEx owns the planes used to transport US mail.
2. USPS is not funded by taxes, unless you consider postage a tax.

If they are talking about people importing medicine for personal use... gimme a break. Now if they were shipping counterfeit meds to US pharmacies, that would be worthy of a federal indictment. I guess they were warned but maybe FedEx could then sue Customs for not intercepting the goods. FedEx is right IMO, it's not their job to do the work that US Customs failed to do.
 
Last edited:
The following also appears to be relevant:

"FedEx indicted for shipping illegal online pharmacy meds

AFP – Fri, Jul 18, 2014

The US Justice Department announced Thursday that package-delivery giant FedEx has been indicted for allegedly facilitating the distribution of controlled substances and prescription drugs sold by illegal online pharmacies.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted the company for having "knowingly and intentionally conspired to distribute" the substances from unauthorized pharmacies, the Justice Department said.

US authorities had warned FedEx of the illegal activities of some online pharmacies which were not authorized to market products in the United States, the department said.

"From at least as early as 2004" the indictment alleges, federal authorities and members of Congress "informed FedEx that illegal Internet pharmacies were using its shipping services," a statement from the department said.

Meanwhile FedEx employees in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia expressed safety concerns to senior management.

Complaints included trucks that "were stopped on the road by online pharmacy customers demanding packages of pills" and delivery addresses that would sometimes be "a parking lot, school, or vacant home where several carloads of people were waiting for the FedEx driver to arrive."

In some instances "customers were jumping on the FedEx trucks and demanding online pharmacy packages" and drivers were "threatened if they insisted on delivering packages to the addresses," the statement said."

Instead of putting an end to activities, FedEx "adopted a procedure whereby Internet pharmacy packages from problematic shippers were held for pick up at specific stations, rather than delivered to the recipient's address."

The indictment resulted from a nine-year investigation by US authorities.

In a similar case, Google agreed to pay $500 million to settle charges that it sold advertisements to Canada-based online pharmacies that marketed drugs to Americans in violation of US law."
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/fedex-indicted-shipping-illegal-online-191039859.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just how are FedEx employees supposed to know what companies are affiliated, or not?

In some places, particularly non urban areas, a school, or parking lot may well be more convenient for customers, and some wouldn't want packages delivered to their place of residence, where an occupant may misuse, or destroy their medications, if they didn't happen to be home at the time.
 
Last edited:
The government just wants to blame someone else for their failure to interdict drugs so that they can push the cost of checking the mail onto a private business. It is really sad and disturbing. Do they really expect fedex to buy hundreds of sniffer dogs, x-Ray machine and additional employers to verify where packages are coming from?
 
I think the issue here is they are alleging that some senior people at FedEx were aware that certain companies they were delivering for existed as little more than a source for black market pharmaceuticals and made a conscious decision to continue delivering packages from these companies. If I were in a similar position I would be indicted for drug trafficking, so I don't see why FedEx should get away with it?

It seems to me that not only were they in violation of the law, but they were advised of this several times and given the opportunity to cease these operations, obviously they declined. That is a lot more courtesy than the average person or group who end up in court charged with some kind of drug crime are afforded, to say the least.

I really hate to see anybody go down for drugs, using or dealing, so long as they are not doing anything that is actually immoral then I think it sucks to see a life get ruined because they dabbled in the sale or use of substances. Still, I think it would set a pretty terrible precedent to say, I as an individual would be charged with drug trafficking if I did the same thing this company has done, but they should not be charged with the same crime for the same activity. I think big business gets way more rights than the individual, generally speaking, and all sorts of crimes go unpunished because they were committed by a corporation instead of an individual or a drug cartel. To me this is very very wrong.

At the end of the day I would like to see this ridiculous drug war end and all its victims be compensated as much as possible, but in the current status quo I have a lot more sympathy for individuals who get caught up in the game for various reasons than I do a very profitable corporation that decided it would ignore Government warnings and continue to deliver illicit drug packages, just to make its profit margins even higher.

Some people in this thread seem to want to boil the issue down to the Government trying to outsource its responsibility to interdict drugs to a private company, I see it quite differently. The issue is not that they failed to notice these packages contained illicit drugs, the issue is that they were informed these packages contained illicit drugs and they made a conscious decision to continue delivering said packages regardless, instead of reducing their profits slightly and refusing to do so. There is a pretty big difference in the two scenarios imho.
 
Last edited:
what about legal pills like etizolam and stuff? ive picked up a 100 at a time straight from the post office before. And USPS has never ever dissappointed me. never used fedex.
 
FedEx facing drug-trafficking charges over illicit pharmaceuticals

Independent

Tim Walker
Sunday 20 July 2014

With reader comments

The courier firm FedEx faces drug-trafficking charges after being indicted by a federal grand jury in California, in a case that highlights the growth in illegal online pharmacies selling dubious medication to people without a prescription.

The 15-count indictment accuses FedEx of conspiring in the delivery of illicit pharmaceuticals, including the sleep aid Ambien and the slimming drug phendimetrazine, despite repeated warnings from the authorities.

During the period covered by the indictment, between 2000 and 2010, FedEx is alleged to have adopted special policies governing the dubious deliveries that would prevent its employees being penalised if a pharmacy abruptly closed for business. Prosecutors say the courier firm made some $820m (£480m) by turning a blind eye to the questionable trade.

US Attorney Melinda Haag said: "The advent of internet pharmacies allowed the cheap and easy distribution of massive amounts of illegal prescription drugs to every corner of the United States, while allowing perpetrators to conceal their identities through the anonymity the internet provides. This indictment highlights the importance of holding corporations that knowingly enable illegal activity responsible for their role in aiding criminal behaviour."
Click to expand...

More...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ges-over-illicit-pharmaceuticals-9616936.html
 
The DEA and FedEx do not like one another. This battle has been brewing for a while.

FedEx has strongly pushed back against the DEA probe, but UPS has now buckled under the pressure . . .

FedEx may prove a tougher nut to crack. Officials there called the federal probe "absurd and disturbing" and said it threatened customer privacy. They also accused the DEA of failing to cooperate with them in efforts to resolve the problem.

"We are a transportation company -- we are not law enforcement, we are not doctors and we are not pharmacists," FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald said in a prepared statement. "We have no interest in violating the privacy of our customers by opening and inspecting their packages in an attempt to determine the legality of the contents. We stand ready and willing to support and assist law enforcement. We cannot, however, do their jobs for them."

FedEx complained that rather than working with the shipping industry to come up with solutions, the Justice Department appeared focused on finding ways to prosecute shippers.
Click to expand...
 
TheLostBoys said:
You're absolutely correct about everything........I won't be surprised if this country turns out like China where if you speak against the govt, etc....you will be in trouble.
Click to expand...

This is the USA. We have the freedom to speak against the govt, as long as we don't actually make a difference, or piss-off the wrong big ego.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top