A California printing company CEO has pleaded guilty to providing counterfeit labels for fraudulent products claiming to be pet medications from a Gwinnett County manufacturer, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Paul S. Rodriguez, Jr. sent counterfeit labels for Frontline and Frontline Plus, manufactured by Duluth-based Merial Pharmaceuticals, to Houston for use in fraudulently labeled pet medications. Rodriguez was the CEO of Action Packing and Design Inc. in Santa Ana, California.
In 2015, four men were indicted on charges of smuggling pet medications into the U.S. and fraudulently selling them under the name of the same manufacturer, Merial Pharmaceuticals, according to the Justice Department.
The international quartet were charged with smuggling goods into the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and trafficking in counterfeit labels. The four men are:
- Iain Nigel MacKellar, 58, of England
- Lam Ngoc "Mark" Tran, 40, of Fountain Valley, California
- Allen Smith, 49, of Phoenix, Arizona
- William Humphries, 58, of Laguna Hills, California
MacKellar and Tran were also charged with additional counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, trafficking in counterfeit labels and smuggling. The Department of Justice did not provide an update on that case as of Friday afternoon.
The four are accused of smuggling pet medications that were not made or approved for use in the U.S. and selling them under the Frontline and Frontline Plus labels.
The four men brought the counterfeit pet medications into the country under the false pretense that they would be used by charitable organizations, the Justice Department said. Instead, the drugs were marketed under fraudulent labels and sold to large retailers. They have since been removed from shelves.
Rodriguez’s sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 2. He is facing up to 10 years in federal prison and up to $2 million in fines.
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