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WASHINGTON (AP) — The e-commerce large eBay pays $59 million in a settlement with the Justice Division over 1000’s of capsule press machines offered on the platform.
The machines can be utilized to fabricate counterfeit capsules that look identical to prescription capsules however as an alternative might be laced with substances like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid drug that’s largely fueling the deadliest overdose disaster in U.S. historical past.
The corporate did not confirm consumers’ identities and maintain information required by regulation, and many individuals who purchased capsule presses on eBay have been prosecuted in reference to trafficking unlawful counterfeit capsules, the Justice Division mentioned.
eBay, headquartered in San Jose, California, supplies a platform for folks to make their very own on-line gross sales. It mentioned it agreed to the settlement to keep away from long-running litigation however maintains it didn’t break the regulation.
The corporate mentioned it had eliminated pill-making tools by itself and blocked “tens of 1000’s” of listings earlier than the Justice Division bought concerned.
“Authorities officers have repeatedly recommended eBay for our partnership with regulation enforcement and efforts to help investigations into unlawful capsule press utilization,” the corporate acknowledged.
Nonetheless, the Justice Division says there have been 1000’s of circumstances through which folks purchased capsule presses on eBay, together with high-capacity presses able to producing 1000’s of capsules per hour. A whole lot of these consumers additionally bought counterfeit molds or dies that allowed them to make capsules that mimic official prescription capsules, authorities mentioned.
eBay failed to satisfy necessities that sellers of pharmaceutical manufacturing tools confirm consumers’ identities, maintain information, and report back to the Drug Enforcement Administration to verify the machines are traceable and never used illegally, federal prosecutors mentioned.
“Counterfeit capsules laced with fentanyl are a big contributor to the lethal overdose epidemic,” mentioned Affiliate Lawyer Basic Vanita Gupta.
Greater than 100,000 deaths have been linked to drug overdoses in 2022, in accordance with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, and greater than than two-thirds of these concerned fentanyl or related artificial medication. The disaster at first centered on prescription painkillers that gained extra acceptance within the Nineties, and later heroin. Over the previous decade, the loss of life toll has reached an all-time excessive, and the most important killers have been artificial opioids corresponding to fentanyl which might be within the provide of many road medication.
“By means of its web site, eBay made it simple for people throughout the nation to acquire the kind of harmful machines which might be typically used to make counterfeit capsules,” mentioned U.S. Lawyer Nikolas Kerest of Vermont.
The corporate has agreed to step up its compliance program on gross sales of capsule presses in addition to counterfeit molds, stamps and dies, and encapsulating machines, that are used to fill capsules.
eBay’s failure to comply with “fundamental reporting and recordkeeping necessities” allowed folks to “arrange capsule factories of their houses and to take action with out detection,” mentioned U.S. Lawyer Henry Leventis for the Center District of Tennessee.
—By Lindsay Whitehurst, Related Press
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