The US treasury department has imposed sanctions on two Indian nationals for their alleged role in running a counterfeit drug network that supplied fentanyl-laced prescription pills to Americans.
An India-based online pharmacy linked to the racket has been blacklisted.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) named Sadiq Abbas Habib Sayyed and Khizar Mohammad Iqbal Shaikh, both based in India, as key players in an international network that pushed “hundreds of thousands” of fake pills, marketed as legitimate medicines, into the US market. The pills were found to contain fentanyl, fentanyl analogues and methamphetamine.
“Too many families have been torn apart by fentanyl. Today, we are acting to hold accountable those who profit from this poison,” said a press statement of the US treasury department, adding it would continue to pursue traffickers as part of Washington’s commitment to “Make America Fentanyl Free”.
The statement said that fentanyl had been identified as the leading driver of the US opioid crisis, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The department claimed that opioid overdoses are the primary cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 45.
According to US authorities, Sayyed and Shaikh worked with traffickers in the Dominican Republic and the US to distribute counterfeit drugs. They used encrypted messaging platforms to promote their products as discounted pharmaceuticals. Both men had already been indicted in September 2024 by a federal grand jury in New York on narcotics-related charges.