Dr. Akhil Bansal: The Temple MBA Student Who Ran a Global Internet Drug Empire

Akhil Bansal had trained as a physician in India before moving to Philadelphia to pursue an MBA at Temple University. While a student, he built and ran a wholesale Internet pharmacy network — dubbed "the Bansal operation" by investigators — from his apartment in the city's Roxborough neighbourhood. The network supplied more than 200 rogue pharmacy websites operated by others, none of which required an actual prescription; some customers received only a short online questionnaire before pills shipped to their door.

The drugs — mostly manufactured in India and Hungary — included the prescription narcotics Vicodin and OxyContin, along with Valium, Prozac, and the "club drug" ketamine, as well as lifestyle drugs like Viagra. At its peak, the operation shipped an estimated 70,000 to 75,000 pills a day, and by the time it was shut down had smuggled some 11 million prescription pills into the United States, reaching roughly 60,000 American customers and earning about $8 million. Bansal's father, Brij Bhusan Bansal, a licensed physician who ran a hospital in Agra, India, was identified by U.S. officials as the primary supplier of the drugs.

Operation Cyberchase

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation, its first major probe of its kind into an international online pharmacy supplier, began in February 2003 after a suspicious package containing 120 tablets of generic Valium was intercepted at Philadelphia International Airport. Agents built much of their case by reading Bansal's own email, since illegal online pharmacies forwarded customer orders to his network by email; the pills were packaged and shipped from a safe house first in Philadelphia and later in Queens, New York, where surveillance showed as many as 1,000 packages a day going out through express courier services.

The case, which investigators called Operation Cyberchase, culminated on April 19, 2005 with 17 synchronized arrests across Philadelphia, New York, Florida, and India, where Bansal's father and sister were taken into custody. Twenty people were arrested in total, and authorities froze bank accounts in eleven countries. Bansal himself was arrested at gunpoint outside his apartment at 1:30 a.m.; he was found carrying a plane ticket to India purchased only hours earlier, having apparently just discovered his accounts had been frozen.

Trial and a 30-Year Sentence

Most of Bansal's co-defendants, including his roommate Atul Patil, struck plea deals and received sentences under three years. Bansal chose to go to trial, representing himself at points in the proceedings, and arguing that what he had done was legal in India. After a five-and-a-half-week trial that ended in April 2005, he was convicted of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to introduce misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, and money laundering. A co-defendant and longtime friend from medical school, Sanjeev Srivastav, was separately sentenced to 15 years.

At his December 14, 2007 sentencing, Bansal, then 29, addressed U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond directly, maintaining he had not committed the charged offences and saying he still believed in the justice system. The prosecution and the judge both pointed to his lack of remorse: Judge Diamond noted Bansal had never once expressed concern that his customers could have been harmed, and read aloud an email in which Bansal had told a struggling overseas partner that his network took on all the risk of the operation "for MONEY." Diamond sentenced Bansal to 30 years in federal prison, five years of probation to follow, and a $250,000 fine on top of the roughly $8 million in proceeds he was ordered to forfeit. Bansal's court-appointed legal adviser argued he had been motivated by a desire to please his father and could still contribute to society; prosecutors countered that every customer who purchased the drugs had been placed at risk of harm.

Timeline

• Feb 2003DEA investigation opens after a suspicious Valium shipment is intercepted at Philadelphia International Airport.
• 2003–2005The Bansal operation supplies more than 200 online pharmacy websites, shipping an estimated 70,000–75,000 pills a day from Philadelphia and later Queens, NY.
• Apr 19, 2005Seventeen synchronized arrests across Philadelphia, New York, Florida, and India; Bansal is arrested outside his apartment while allegedly attempting to flee to India.
• Apr 2005Convicted after a 5½-week trial of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to introduce misbranded drugs, and money laundering.
• Dec 14, 2007Sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, 5 years' probation, a $250,000 fine, and forfeiture of roughly $8 million in proceeds.