Man admits to smuggling drugs, selling them as supplements

An Allentown man faces up to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling a banned weight-loss drug and an erectile dysfunction medication from China and selling them as “all-natural” dietary supplements.

Leandro Rodriguez, 45, of the 900 block of West Tioga Street pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith to a count of conspiracy to smuggle misbranded drugs and impair the function of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Federal prosecutors said Rodriguez took part in a conspiracy from 2011 to 2017 to import the drugs from China to resell to consumers.

According to court documents, the drugs contained Sibutramine, a controlled substance that was pulled from the market as a weight-loss drug in the United States because of its connection with cardiac events and strokes. Rodriguez also imported Tadalafil, which is the active ingredient in Cialis, a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction that had not been approved as a generic medication by the FDA during the time Rodriguez imported it.

A guilty plea memorandum outlining the evidence against Rodriguez said he conspired with his now-deceased brotherin-law and another man, both of whom lived in south Texas to import the drugs. Rodriguez’s brother-in-law gave him pre-paid drug orders and Rodri

guez imported them disguised as something else and shipped them to Texas using false names. The men paid Rodriguez more than $669,000 for the drugs.

Rodriguez owned a mail-order business in Allentown called Lean on Nature and his brother-in-law sold the drugs wholesale as well as at a flea market in McAllen, Texas. The other man sold the drugs to consumers in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom through a website. Prosecutors said email, text messages and seven years of bank records show that Rodriguez shipped hundreds of parcels to the men and knew that the drugs were illegal to sell in the United States.

The case was investigated by the criminal investigation arm of the FDA, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary E. Crawley. Rodriguez’s sentencing is set Jan. 18.

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Peter Hall