CLEVELAND, Ohio - Law enforcement officials announced today that six people were indicted in federal court for their roles in a drug conspiracy that resulted in the seizure of 17 kilograms of cocaine and more than $500,000 in cash. Named in the seven-count indictment are: Marty V. McCaulley, 42, of...

WASHINGTON D.C. - China’s National Narcotics Control Commission announced this week that scheduling controls against four fentanyl-class substances - carfentanil, furanyl fentanyl, valeryl fentanyl, and acryl fentanyl - will begin on March 1, 2017. This announcement is the culmination of ongoing collaboration between the Drug Enforcement (DEA) and the Government...

WASHINGTON - DEA and the Southern District of New York today announced the arrival of four individuals from Kenya to New York charged with participating in a massive global drug trafficking enterprise, and includes the leader of a well-known organized crime family in Africa. BAKTASH AKASHA ABDALLA, a/k/a “Baktash Akasha,”...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Today the United States Attorney’s Office For the Southern District of Ohio unsealed a plea agreement with the owner and operator of Columbus Southern Medical Center, which provided unlawful prescriptions of controlled substances to numerous individuals who were addicted to drugs, in Ohio and surrounding states. The...

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A Tennessee man has been sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute massive quantities of marijuana and cocaine in central Kentucky, and conspiring to launder approximately one million dollars in illegal drug proceeds. On Thursday, January 26th, 2017, U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell...

MONGOMERY, Ala. - Dr. Robert M. Ritchea, 54, of LaGrange, Georgia, pled guilty to conspiring to unlawfully distribute a controlled substance through operating a “pill mill” and money laundering scheme, announced Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Bret Hamilton and United States Attorney George L. Beck, Jr. A “pill mill”...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Six of the nineteen defendants charged in a gang-related racketeering and murder investigation, were sentenced this week in U.S. District Court. Timothy J. Plancon, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’(DEA) Detroit Field Division, Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - United States Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr., and Timothy J. Plancon, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Detroit Field Division, announced today that George Kudmani, a Louisville physician, was convicted in U.S. District Court on multiple counts including unlawful distribution of controlled substances...

WASHINGTON - Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates today announced that Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, known by various aliases including “El Chapo,” will face charges filed in Brooklyn, New York, following his extradition to the United States from Mexico, alleging that he was operating a continuing criminal enterprise and other...

WASHINGTON D.C. - Costco Wholesale will pay $11.75 million to settle allegations that its pharmacies violated the Controlled Substances Act when they improperly filled prescriptions for controlled substances. The settlement resolves allegations that Costco pharmacies filled prescriptions that were incomplete, lacked valid Drug Enforcement (DEA) numbers or were for substances...