Ismail Ali Khan, an Indian-American man, was sentenced to over five years in the prison for conspiring to illegally distribute the male enhancement pills which are imported from China and has lost his US citizenship, said the Justice Department on Friday.
29-year-old Khan, was convicted and also sentenced for falsely stating in his application to become a naturalised US citizen that he had never committed a crime. Khan now faces deportation to India.
Khan, a resident of the Decatur in Georgia, was sentenced to five years and seven months in the federal prison after being convicted of conspiring to import illegally and also distribute the male enhancement pills which contained the drug found in Viagra, the US Department of Justice, attorney’s office, Northern District of Georgia said in a statement. Khan’s sentence would be followed by three years of supervised release, the statement said.
Judge Steve C Jones, at the time of sentencing ordered that Khan’s status as a naturalised US citizen will be revoked and also his certificate of naturalisation was declared void.
Judge Jones also ordered during sentencing that Khan will be immediately deported to India once he completes his term in prison.
At that point of time, the supervised release will not be enforced. Khan was found guilty by a jury on 13th February.
“This defendant endangered the health of countless individuals by illegally importing and distributing drugs that can be obtained in the US only with a prescription written by a licensed, medical professional,” US attorney John Horn said.
“The defendant became a naturalised US citizen by giving a false statement about his criminal history, while he was engaged in this illicit drug scheme,” said Horn.
Justin Green, a special agent in-charge at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations, Miami Field Office said that FDA remains committed to pursuing those who endanger the US public health by distributing the fraudulent and potentially dangerous products.
The defendant and also others imported the male enhancement pills from China and distributed the pills throughout the United States, said Horn.
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These male enhancement pills contained the same drug which is the active ingredient in Viagra. If the male enhancement pills had been properly labelled, then FDA and US Customs and Border Protection would have stopped them from entering the United States because Viagra is available in this country only when it is prescribed by a licensed physician and dispensed by a pharmacist, said Horn.
In order to evade the import restrictions, the defendant and also his co-conspirators directed their suppliers of pills to mislabel the boxes containing the pills to make them appear that the boxes contained items which can be legally imported into the US, as like beauty products, pottery, coffee and tea, said the Justice Department in a statement.
The accused received the illegally imported pills at multiple addresses in Atlanta. They rented the storage units at different locations where they repackaged the pills for distribution to the wholesale and retail locations in the Atlanta area and throughout United States, said the statement.
In order to evade the detection by law enforcement authorities, they moved their illegal operations consistently, used aliases, false addresses and also fake business names, and also misrepresented the nature of their business while renting the storage units and mailboxes, the statement said.
During the course of a conspiracy which lasted from early 2011 until the May 2014, Khan and also his co-conspirators illegally imported more than $1.5 million worth of illegal drugs which came from China and also distributed them in United States.
On 12th August, 2013, while this drug conspiracy was going on, Khan has submitted an application to the citizenship and Immigration Services to become a naturalised United States citizen.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
