10 charged in US over $27 million scheme to sell black market HIV drugs
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Those accused in the case had been “preying on vulnerable members of society”.
PHOTO: PEXELS
NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors in the United States have accused 10 people of orchestrating a US$20 million (S$27 million) scheme to “get rich” by buying and selling black market HIV medications that in some cases had been purchased from low-income patients who risked their lives by selling them.
Some of the accused used the proceeds to buy luxury cars, waterfront real estate in New York City, designer clothes, jewellery and gold, according to a statement released on Friday by Mr Damian Williams, US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
According to a 24-page indictment filed in the US District Court in Manhattan, the scheme also involved bribing patients to use specific local pharmacies that were involved in the plot and defrauding Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies of millions of dollars since 2017.
Mr Williams said those accused had been “preying on vulnerable members of society”.
Several defendants are facing decades in prison on various charges, including conspiracy to commit wire and healthcare fraud as well as money laundering.
Three years ago, federal prosecutors said, Christy Corvalan, a Bronx pharmacy owner, sent a photo of black market HIV medication to a man who had sold it to her.
“I was going to keep it but I really can’t,” she wrote to Boris Aminov in a WhatsApp message. She added: “I already have enough bad ones to work with.”
He had already sold her too many “degraded” bottles of HIV medication that she had altered to look more legitimate so she could resell them for a profit, Corvalan explained in her message, prosecutors said. This specific bottle, she told Aminov, was of especially poor quality.
The way prescription drugs are manufactured, handled and sold is carefully regulated in the US. Prosecutors said those who purchase medications from black market dealers cannot be sure these have been held to the same standards.
Aminov, Corvalan and three people who worked at her pharmacies were charged in connection with the scheme in March, but on Friday prosecutors added charges and charged six additional people.
Aminov, who lives in Brooklyn, and another man acquired the black market HIV medications and sold the drugs to pharmacies owned by Corvalan and at least two pharmacies owned by people in Queens at prices well below market value, according to the indictment.
From there, the “potentially unsafe medication” was resold to pharmacies across the country or dispensed to patients, prosecutors said.
Even though the drugs were bought cheaply and illegally, prosecutors added, Corvalan’s pharmacies consistently billed insurance companies for the full value of the medication and made about US$3,000 in profit on each monthly prescription they filled.
Corvalan and some of her employees also bribed patients to use her pharmacies in order to submit fraudulent bills for those prescriptions, according to the indictment, and encouraged predominantly low-income patients to forgo their prescribed HIV treatment by offering to buy their monthly medications for a few hundred dollars.
One patient questioned a defendant, Antonio Payano, about the price the latter was offering to pay for a bottle of HIV medication Biktarvy, according to prosecutors.
In a text message, the patient wrote “why am I risking my life for such little $”.
Medication bought back from individuals with HIV was dispensed to other patients while Corvalan and others pocketed the money Medicaid and Medicare paid to fill the prescriptions, according to the indictment. NYTIMES
