America's (Other) Most Wanted: FDA Takes Aim at Drug and Device Fugitives
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking a page from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the hopes of tracking down some of the most egregious violators of federal food and drug law.
On 15 April 2014, FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI), FDA's criminal enforcement division, launched a "Most Wanted Fugitives" page complete with 11 profiles of fugitives purported to be behind some of the worst violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) in recent memory.
One alleged fugitive, Dushyant Mehendrabhai Patel, reportedly headed up a North Carolina-based company which sold pre-filled heparin syringes without first conducting sterility testing despite providing assurances that his company had done so. The products were ultimately associated with at least five deaths and hundreds of other injuries requiring hospitalization, FDA said.
Other fugitives contained on the list are reported to have imported counterfeit drugs, marketed mislabeled and unapproved drugs, and diverted and resold pharmaceuticals.
Each profile of a reported fugitive contains a mugshot, a brief case history and the person's name, age and national origin.