Indian-American pharmacy employee convicted in illegal Oxy pill mill scheme

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An Indian-American man employed at a pharmacy in west Philadelphia, was convicted Nov. 27, on the charge of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone outside the usual course of professional practice and with no legitimate medical purpose.

United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania William M. McSwain announced that Anmol Singh Kamra, 27, of Upper Darby, a pharmacy technician at Campus Pharmacy in West Philadelphia, conspired with George Fisher, a physician, and Frank Brown, both charged separately, to illegally distribute thousands of oxycodone pills to people suffering from addiction.

Prosecutors said that from about December 2012 through about March 2016, Kamra, Fisher, and Brown orchestrated and executed a scheme to turn the pharmacy into a “pill mill” in which Kamra knowingly filled fake oxycodone prescriptions written by Fisher in sham “patient” names, and gave the oxycodone pills to Brown to sell in street level drug deals, the press release said.

At times, Kamra would sell drugs without a prescription and then request that Fisher backdate a fake prescription in an attempt to cover the tracks.  At trial, Kamra testified that this backdating of prescriptions was a mere “courtesy” on behalf of the doctor so patients could receive their prescriptions in a timely manner, but undercover video evidence showed otherwise.  This small pharmacy in West Philadelphia sold so many opioids that some were hidden under the sink for fear that their distributor would notice the over-abundance and cut them off for exceeding the allowable limit, investigators found.

“Kamra was operating nothing more than a corrupt pill mill,” U.S. Attorney McSwain is quoted saying in the press release. “The misuse of opioids is killing our citizens, and this defendant significantly contributed to our region’s crippling opioid epidemic.”