Pharmaceutical distributor Miami-Luken and four individuals, including the company’s former compliance officer, have been charged with unlawful distribution of opioids in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, the U.S. Department of Justice announced July 18.

Miami-Luken was among several drug distributors questioned by members of Congress in January 2018 about the distribution of opioid painkillers, including whether the distributors had used “any analytic tools” to assess whether the large amount of pills they distributed to pharmacies in certain towns was in proportion to the towns’ relatively small populations. Miami-Luken, in particular, was asked how its compliance department had used site visit reports from a consultant who found suspicious activity at one pharmacy. 

According to DOJ, a federal grand jury has now returned an indictment against the distributor, its former president Anthony Rattini, former compliance officer James Barclay and two pharmacists for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances. The pharmacists are Devonna Miller-West of Oceana, West Virginia, who owned and operated Westside Pharmacy in Oceana, and Samuel “Randy” Ballengee of Lovely, Kentucky, who owned and operated Tug Valley Pharmacy in Williamson, West Virginia.

“Today’s arrests should be a wakeup call to distributors and pharmacists who are allowing opioid prescription pills to be illegally sold and dispensed from their facilities,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Administrator John Martin in the written news release. “These actions will not be tolerated by the DEA, and they will be brought to justice.”

During the period relating to the indictment (approximately 2008 to 2015), Miami-Luken supplied pharmaceuticals to more than 200 pharmacies in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and Tennessee. The company and its two officials are charged with failing to maintain effective controls against diversion of controlled substances, failing to report suspicious orders to DEA and shipping dangerous, addictive painkillers to doctors and pharmacies in rural Appalachia, where the opioid epidemic was at its peak. They did so even after being advised by the DEA of their responsibility to ensure the drugs were not being diverted and to report suspicious orders, prosecutors said.

The indictment alleges that all five defendants, along with unnamed coconspirators, knowingly and willfully conspired confederated and agreed with others to violate 21 U.S.C. §841(a)—that is, to knowingly and intentionally distribute and dispense a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of oxycodone and hydrocodone, Schedule II and III controlled substances, outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

Conspiring to illegally distribute controlled substances is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison, DOJ said.