Crackdown on Internet Pharmaceutical Sales Catches 20
Twenty people in eight U.S. cities, India and Costa Rica were arrested in the past two days and charged with helping run a global Internet prescription drug trafficking ring, U.S. officials said.

More arrests are expected in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

``Operation Cyber Chase'' targeted a worldwide pill-supply organization headed by a doctor in India, Brij Bhusan Bansal, and his son Akhil, a student at Temple University in Philadelphia, Karen Tandy, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told a news conference in suburban Virginia outside Washington.

The smugglers accepted orders over the Internet without a doctor's prescription, officials said.

The smuggling ring is accused of shipping controlled substances such as the painkiller codeine, the anti-anxiety drug diazepam and the animal tranquilizer Ketamine, often described as a date-rape drug, from India to repackaging offices in New York City and Philadelphia. From there, the drugs were distributed throughout the U.S. and the world, officials said.

``The Internet has become an open medicine cabinet, a help- yourself pill bazaar to make you feel good,'' Tandy said. She said rogue Internet pharmacy sites ``are fueling the abuse of prescription drugs'' in the U.S.

Since July 2003, the Bansal organization distributed about 2.5 million doses per month of drugs that also included the painkiller Vicodin, anabolic steroids and amphetamines, officials said. It connected with customers through more than 200 Web sites operated by associates in the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica and Australia, they said.

The operation is a joint effort by the DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies.

The Bansal organization had about 100,000 customers worldwide, of which 60 percent to 70 percent were in the U.S., said Terry Riley, staff coordinator of the DEA's special operations division.

In India, at the home of the elder Bansal, authorities who arrested him found ``a virtual pill mill,'' Riley said.

Tandy said the investigation is continuing.

The action is the latest by the government and companies to stem sales of pharmaceuticals over the Internet.

In February, Pfizer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. sued two Internet pharmacies and sought to seize domain names of about a dozen others in an attempt to halt sales of counterfeit Viagra, the top-selling male impotence drug. New York-based Pfizer had $1.68 billion in Viagra sales last year.

The DEA offers a toll-free hotline and a form on its Web site for people to report suspected unlawful sales of pharmaceutical drugs over the Internet.