Online pharmacy charged with racketeering, fraud

Eighteen people who helped sell more than $126 million worth of prescription drugs over the Internet to people without doctor exams have been charged with federal racketeering.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says a 313-count indictment marks the first time organized-crime statutes designed to combat drug cartels and mafia rings have been used to charge anyone with selling prescription drugs over the Internet.

The indictment says Costa Rica-based AffPower took more than one million orders for legal pharmaceuticals including diet pills, birth control pills, Prozac and Viagra between August 2004 and June 2006. A network of affiliated Web sites are alleged to have received a cut of fees in return for each order forwarded to AffPower.

The indictment names doctors and pharmacies along with AffPower executives and recruiters.

The indictment further states that doctors, who were paid $3 for each order reviewed, approved hundreds or even thousands of orders a day.

The indictment, unsealed in federal court in San Diego today, names three doctors licensed in Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Massachusetts and pharmacists in Colorado and Florida.