Executives from pharmaceutical companies in Belgium are to be charged with knowingly supplying drug cartels with prescription drugs that were used to manufacture methamphetamine, prosecutors have announced.
Seven top executives at three Belgian pharmaceutical giants are accused of providing several tons of ephedrine to the Mexican drug kingpin Ezio Figueroa Vazquez knowing it was going to be used in the production of crystal meth.
It would seem that there isn’t much difference between the pharmaceutical industry and organized crime
The Free Thought Project reports:
Prosecutors have said that there are seven executives who were charged with crimes, but they have not named these executives or the companies that they represent. However, Reuters uncovered that Sterop and Andacon are two of the three companies involved in the charges.
The companies claim that they had no clue who was buying the drugs, but prosecutors say that they have evidence proving that the executives had full knowledge of what they were involved in. The evidence reportedly includes email and phone surveillance.
“The company made two shipments of two million pills containing pseudoephedrine in 2006. These medicines were freely available then. My clients delivered to a reliable commercial partner and had no idea of the inappropriate use of the drugs,“ a representative of Andacon said.
Prosecutors spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt said that Ezio Figueroa Vazquez received large shipments of ephedrine from these companies between 2006 and 2011, which cost an estimated 360 million euros.
As we reported last month, according to neuroscientist Dr. Carl Hart, the top big pharma drug Adderall is nearly identical to crystal meth. Not only are these drugs similar, but it also seems that big pharma is the source of the cartel’s needed supply.
This arrangement makes sense because the only place to get massive quantities of a substance like ephedrine would be a pharmaceutical company, and most of these companies don’t really care who their customers are, especially if they are making millions of dollars on the deal.
Niamh Harris