The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamas-based pharmacist was paid $4,000 a month for the use of his company’s name and licence in a scheme to export illegal prescription drugs from Freeport into the US, court documents have revealed.

Papers filed last week in the south Florida district court, as part of Canadian Andrew Strempler’s guilty plea to US federal charges, disclose that the Freeport-based Personal Touch Pharmacy was used for an 18-month scheme to ship prescription drugs into the US that were not approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).

That made their export from the Bahamas illegal, and Strempler is now facing a potential five-year prison sentence, forfeiting $300,000 and a further fine and restitution.

Documents filed as an ‘agreed statement of fact’ between the US federal authorities and Strempler did not identify the Bahamas-based pharmacist who allowed his business to be used.

A Dwight McCoy was named as having managed Personal Touch Pharmacy, but it is not clear if this is the same person, as he was described as running the business for RxNorth, Strempler’s company. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Mr McCoy’s part, although the US documents refer to “criminal charges filed in the Bahamas” in relation to the case.

The documents agreed between Strempler and the US said: “From in or around January 2005, to on or about June 9, 2006, Strempler and others utilised a facility in Freeport, in the Bahamas, to dispense prescription drugs purchased from RxNorth.

“Personal Touch Pharmacy was the trade name used by a pharmacist who was licensed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority to operate a pharmacy in the Bahamas, and to import and export prescription drugs.

“Strempler paid $4,000 a month for the use of the Personal Touch name and the pharmacist’s license to ship medicine into the Bahamas, and then ship the medicine back out. Strempler hired a manager and staff for the Personal Touch facility.”

The agreed statement said documents obtained from Personal Touch’s manager showed prescription drugs were obtained from nations such as Australia and Turkey, which were not approved by the FDA.

“Prescription drugs from foreign countries were shipped to the facility in the Bahamas according to detailed ‘Procedures for Orders Shipped to the Bahamas’,” the US court document said.

“Foreign suppliers were instructed to not refer to RxNorth or Mediplan on the shipping invoice, and specified that drugs must be shipped to the Bahamas so that there were no stopovers in Canada or the US.

“Workers at Personal Touch were instructed not to use arriving inventory to fulfill prescriptions until Strempler reviewed and approved the labels and packaging on drugs that Personal Touch received from the foreign suppliers.”

Staff at the Bahamian pharmacy filled orders using a computer system linked to RxNorth in Canada. Orders were shipped in bulk from the Bahamas to drop shippers in the UK and Netherlands Antilles, who delivered the orders to individual customers.

The scheme, though, came to an end when the US authorities seized two shipments from Personal Touch at Miami International Airport on June 6-7, 2006. Collectively, the two shipments were worth $158,000.

Tribune Business previously reported that this episode once again highlights, and reinforces, the need for Bahamian regulatory authorities to be vigilant in ensuring this jurisdiction is not abused by potentially illegal schemes devised abroad.

It also shows the need for the Ministry of Health, together with the Bahamas Pharmacy Council, to protect this nation against allegedly ‘rogue’ operators, as well as the Grand Bahama Port Authority’s need to prevent Freeport’s ‘free trade’ status from being abused.

The court documents seen by Tribune Business indicate that the US authorities must have co-operated, to some extent, with their Bahamian counterparts in the investigation of Personal Touch and Strempler.

There was a reference to “consent regarding computer equipment at Personal Touch Pharmacy in the Bahamas”, and a “warrant to search Personal Touch Pharmacy in the Bahamas” among the prosecution’s evidence.

And the court evidence added: “At the discovery conference, the FDA Special Agent provided to defense a hard drive which contained complete images of four computers from Personal Touch Pharmacy in the Bahamas.

“As indicated in the government’s discovery response filed July 13, 2012, the FDA agent sent to counsel on July 13, 2012, the documents, photos, e-mails, etc, that had been obtained through a forensic examination of those four computers.”