Federal authorities have charged a 71-year-old Korean man with trafficking $700,000 worth of counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills into the United States through Los Angeles International Airport.
The man, Kil Jun Lee, a former Korean law enforcement officer who lives in Los Angeles, was arrested upon returning from a trip to Korea with nearly 40,000 pills wrapped in aluminum packets and tucked away in his golf bag and luggage. The pills were counterfeit Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.
When customs agents asked Lee if the pills were for personal use, he said he would die if he took them all because he has a heart condition.
The Viagra site says that its counterfeit counterpart may contain blue printer ink, speed and drywall.
The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
In a separate case, another man, Barry Ronnel Johnson, 38, pleaded guilty Wednesday to using Craigslist to sell counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills. Johnson admitted that he was importing the pills, blue-diamond shaped tablets labeled “Filagra,” from China and India.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations reported they made nearly 25,000 seizures of pirated items in 2011, a 24 percent increase over 2010.
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