United States Drug Enforcement Administration

WASHINGTON – A federal court ordered an Elkin, North Carolina, pharmacy to pay a $500,000 penalty and enjoined the pharmacy and its pharmacists from dispensing controlled substances, including opioids, without taking steps to help ensure the drugs will not be abused or diverted. The consent decree resolves a complaint filed...

FRESNO, Calif. — Ifeanyi Vincent Ntukogu, 49, of Fresno, was sentenced today to seven years and three months in prison for illegally distributing oxycodone and hydrocodone. Ntukogu was a pharmacist in Madera who dispensed more than 450,000 oxycodone and hydrocodone pills based on fraudulent prescriptions, all in exchange for cash...

POCATELLO – Dr. Gerald Knouf, a family medicine doctor formerly of Pocatello, Idaho, agreed to pay $96,000 to resolve allegations that he wrote unlawful prescriptions, prescribed dangerous combinations of drugs, and billed Medicare and Medicaid for services that were not performed, U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit announced today. The settlement also...

OAKLAND, Calif. – Parto Karimi, a former Bay Area doctor, has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for distributing powerful opioids outside the scope of medical practice, announced United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), San Francisco Field Division, Special Agent...

MIAMI – On January 12, a Miami federal court jury convicted a doctor of conspiracy to unlawfully dispense and distribute controlled substances, and six counts of unlawfully dispensing controlled substances. The conviction followed a seven-day trial before U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn. Under federal law, a physician is authorized...

Washington, DC – The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will host its 25th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, October 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in more than 300 collection sites across Maryland, District of Columbia, and Virginia (DMV). Through a collaborative effort with local law enforcement...

SPOKANE, Wash.– The Ferry County Hospital District agreed to pay a $15,000 Controlled Substances Act penalty and to institute corrective actions in regards to opioid prescribing practices at Republic Drug Store, a pharmacy in Republic, Washington, that Ferry County Hospital District purchased in January 2021 and has continued to operate...

Baltimore, Maryland - U.S. District Judge Lydia K. Griggsby approved the United States’ consent decree with John A. Beckman, a Cumberland, Maryland based pharmacist, and Beckman’s Greene Street Pharmacy, Inc. (“Beckman’s Pharmacy”), resolving the United States’ civil allegations that Beckman and Beckman’s Pharmacy violated the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) in...

WASHINGTON – This morning, law enforcement agents from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) arrested 12 alleged members of a violent drug trafficking organization (“DTO”), known...

NEW BERN, N.C. – A three-judge panel from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous, published opinion affirming former physician Jong Whan Kim’s conviction and sentence for operating a pill mill in Tabor City. The Fourth Circuit’s decision was the first published opinion by the Court upholding a...