Not related to the markets but interesting read about McKesson, shady pharmacies, big corp getting away with murder etc. Long read, but worth it.
[Article] 'We feel like our system was hijacked': DEA agents say a huge opioid case ended in a whimper
Not related to the markets but interesting read about McKesson, shady pharmacies, big corp getting away with murder etc. Long read, but worth it.
[1 Points] savingfluffybunnies:
[10 Points] _PrinterPam_:
The DEA team — nine field divisions working with 12 U.S. attorney's offices across 11 states — wanted to revoke registrations to distribute controlled substances...
That shows the absurd amount of power Big Pharma possesses. As the article notes, the $150mil fine was only $50mil more than the CEO makes in a single year. And with $200 billion of revenue/year, I have to wonder how the DEA ever thought they were going to take an executive or two to jail or revoke/restrict the company's license to sell.
[3 Points] drimilr:
"After two years of painstaking investigation, David Schiller and the rest of the Drug Enforcement Administration team he supervised were ready to move on the biggest opioid distribution case in U.S. history.
The team, based out of the DEA’s Denver field division, had been examining the operations of the nation’s largest drug company, McKesson Corp. By 2014, investigators said they could show that the company had failed to report suspicious orders involving millions of highly addictive painkillers sent to drugstores from Sacramento, Calif., to Lakeland, Fla. Some of those went to corrupt pharmacies that supplied drug rings.
The investigators were ready to come down hard on the fifth-largest public corporation in America, according to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes.”
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The DEA team — nine field divisions working with 12 U.S. attorney’s offices across 11 states — wanted to revoke registrations to distribute controlled substances at some of McKesson’s 30 drug warehouses. Schiller and members of his team wanted to fine the company more than $1 billion. More than anything else, they wanted to bring the first-ever criminal case against a drug distribution company, maybe even walk an executive in handcuffs out of McKesson’s towering San Francisco headquarters to send a message to the rest of the industry.
David Schiller said his team was demoralized when the case against McKesson was downgraded. (Mark Abramson/For The Washington Post)
“This is the best case we’ve ever had against a major distributor in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration,” said Schiller, who recently retired as assistant special agent in charge of DEA’s Denver field division after a 30-year career with the agency. “I said, ‘How do we not go after the number one organization?’ ”
But it didn’t work out that way.
Instead, top attorneys at the DEA and the Justice Department struck a deal earlier this year with the corporation and its powerful lawyers, an agreement that was far more lenient than the field division wanted, according to interviews and internal government documents. Although the agents and investigators said they had plenty of evidence and wanted criminal charges, they were unable to convince the U.S. attorney in Denver that they had enough to bring a case.
Discussions about charges never became part of the negotiations between the government lawyers in Washington and the company.
“It was insulting,” Schiller said. “Morale has been broken because of it.”
The result illustrates the long-standing conflict between drug investigators, who have taken an aggressive approach to a prescription opioid epidemic that killed nearly 200,000 people between 2000 and 2016, and the government attorneys who handle those cases at the DEA and the Justice Department.
None of McKesson’s warehouses would lose their DEA registrations. The company, a second-time offender, had promised in 2008 to be more diligent about the diversion of its pills to the street. It ultimately agreed to temporarily suspend controlled substance shipments at four distribution centers and pay a $150 million fine.
“Within the ranks, we feel like our system was hijacked,” said Helen Kaupang, a DEA investigator and supervisor for 29 years who worked on the McKesson case in Denver before retiring in September.
While the fine set a record for drug distributors, it is only about $50 million more than the compensation last year for McKesson board chairman and chief executive John H. Hammergren, the nation’s third-highest-paid chief executive. McKesson has 76,000 employees and revenue of almost $200 billion a year, about the same as ExxonMobil.
The Justice Department declined repeated requests for comment.
“The McKesson settlement was a groundbreaking conclusion to a successful multi-district investigation into the role of a distributor’s failure to detect and report suspicious orders, many of which were tied to independent and small chain pharmacy customers ordering opioid medications,” the DEA said in a statement. “More importantly, McKesson accepted responsibility and accepted terms beyond the requirements of the [Controlled Substances Act].”
A senior agency official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the fine was a significant penalty, the company agreed to an independent monitor, and the case prompted McKesson and other distributors to be more diligent about reporting suspicious orders.
“We could have fined them out of existence, or indicted the company and put them out of business,” the official said. “I’d rather have one of the largest drug distributors be the poster child for detection and reporting of suspicious orders.”
At the time of the settlement, McKesson said it had instituted “significant changes” to its program designed to flag suspicious orders of narcotics. “We continue to significantly enhance the procedures and safeguards across our distribution network to help curtail prescription drug diversion while ensuring patient access to needed medications,” Hammergren said in a statement.
The company also has said that addressing the opioid problem requires the cooperation of everyone involved — doctors, pharmacists, distributors and manufacturers.
In a recent interview, Geoffrey E. Hobart, McKesson’s lead attorney, said that the prospect of criminal charges or a $1 billion fine against the company were never raised by government lawyers during nearly three years of negotiations.
“While I am not privy to any of the government team discussions that may have taken place behind closed doors in this particular settlement, I can tell you that the DEA investigators, the U.S. attorney’s offices and others would have had plenty of opportunity to raise their views during the process,” said Hobart, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Covington, one of the most influential law firms in Washington. “While individual DEA investigators and agents are entitled to their opinions, their agency may ultimately take a different view.”
[3 Points] Gabe-Utsecks:
60 minutes is covering this as I type this. That was odd.
[1 Points] basjin:
money rules the world!
vote for trump.
[2 Points] None:
Hard fucking paywall you got there buddy
[1 Points] missalfa:
TLDR? Its all about the money guys, its a big mafia and you are not part of it... Makes me think about that game I love so much called LA Noire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/7kff04/article_we_feel_like_our_system_was_hijacked_dea/drduiy9/