A Naperville man allegedly used his drug wholesale distribution company to divert more than $57 million in unregulated prescription drugs in order to resell them to other pharmacies and wholesalers, according to a U.S. District Court indictment.
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Gurucharan Dua has been charged with six counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering in connection with actions he reportedly took through his Plainfield-based business, a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago said.
Prosecutors say Dua obtained prescription drugs at discounted prices from unlicensed suppliers and had his employees “clean the bottles to fraudulently make the drugs appear to be from a regulated prescription drug distribution chain.”
He then allegedly “sold the diverted prescription drugs to unsuspecting pharmacies and other wholesalers, falsely representing to them that his company had acquired the prescription drugs from a licensed source in a regulated supply chain,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The illegal transactions occurred from 2011 to 2017, and some of the recipients were pharmacies and wholesalers located in Chicago, Joliet and Springfield, Massachusetts, the indictment said.
Dua’s arraignment date is Aug. 31 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings.
“Patients deserve to have confidence that they are receiving the legitimately prescribed medication and not an unregulated, diverted drug,” U.S. Attorney John Lausch said in a news release.
Lynda Burdelik, special agent-in-charge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Chicago Field Office, said, “Prescription drugs that are not in the legitimate supply chain can present a serious health risk to those who buy and use these diverted drugs.”