DOJ Files Charges Over Dietary Supplement Import Scheme
A company and two individuals were charged over an alleged scheme to smuggle "purported dietary supplement ingredients" into the U.S., the Justice Department said in a recent news release. Bao Luu, Lynn Chau and Chau's company, Pure Assay Ingredients, are accused of deceiving Food and Drug Administration and CBP inspectors, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Two Chinese citizens were also charged, it said. The indictment alleged that the scheme used mislabeling of "certain stimulants and other questionable ingredients as non-controversial substances to evade government scrutiny during import," the DOJ said. It's also alleged "that the defendants sold the smuggled substances to dietary supplement manufacturers in the United States for use in consumer products. In one instance, the indictment contends that Chau and Luu assembled a false shipment to fool FDA into believing that Pure Assay destroyed substances the agency blocked from distribution. In reality, Pure Assay already had shipped out the real products and presented mislabeled substitutes for destruction."
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A combination of "false certificates of analysis and false labels" were allegedly submitted to the FDA when "they believed that an ingredient would be denied entry or invite inquiries" from the inspectors, it said. "The false documents typically declared the substances to be sucralose, melatonin, or other legal ingredients. The indictment alleges that the defendants used this method to smuggle into the United States designer steroids and stimulants for use in dietary supplements while disregarding the risk that their operation posed to consumers."