An Ohio drug wholesale distributor and two former executives were charged yesterday with profiting from the U.S. opioid epidemic by selling millions of pills despite signs the addictive drugs were being misused, Reuters reported. Federal prosecutors in Cincinnati charged Miami-Luken Inc. and four people in the second U.S. criminal case against a drug distributor over its role in a crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. The indictment charged the Springboro, Ohio-based company; Anthony Rattini, its ex-president; James Barlay, Miami-Luken’s former compliance officer, and two pharmacists with conspiring to distribute controlled substances. Prosecutors said Miami-Luken and the executives failed to guard against the dangerous drugs it shipped to pharmacies in five states from being diverted for illegal uses or to report suspicious orders to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Prosecutors said Miami-Luken, which closed in October, made more than $173 million in consolidated sales from 2008 to 2015 supplying drugs to 200 pharmacies in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.
