Behind FedEx’s Alleged Billion-Dollar Drug Trafficking Crime: Diet Pills

Can’t the feds at least go after addictive drugs? The federal war on drugs has now become a war on diet pills. FedEx Corp. pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday to 15 charges related to shipping illegal drugs that allegedly earned it $820 million, prompting some media outfits to ask, “Is FedEx America’s Biggest Drug Dealer?” The 26-page indictment, handed down by a grand jury in mid-July, accuses FedEx of conspiring with online pharmacies—the Chhabra-Smoley Organization from 2000-’08, and Superior Drugs from 2002-’10—to distribute eight prescription drugs: three diet pills, three anti-anxiety meds, one sleeping pill and a low-level painkiller. Most of the charges concern the diet pills: Phendimetrazine, Phentermine and Diethylpropion. “The advent of Internet pharmacies allowed the cheap […] Read More