J&J, Te­va and four oth­ers un­der crim­i­nal probe as feds in­ves­ti­gate opi­oid mak­ers for fail­ing to mon­i­tor dis­tri­b­u­tion

On top of hun­dreds of law­suits waged by state and lo­cal gov­ern­ments, sev­er­al ma­jor drug­mak­ers and dis­trib­u­tors are now fac­ing a fed­er­al crim­i­nal probe for their role in per­pet­u­at­ing the opi­oid cri­sis.

Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors in Brook­lyn are in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether phar­ma com­pa­nies have vi­o­lat­ed the Con­trolled Sub­stance Act — a pro­vi­sion nor­mal­ly re­served for drug deal­ers ac­cord­ing to ex­perts — by in­ten­tion­al­ly al­low­ing their opi­oids to flood com­mu­ni­ties, the Wall Street Jour­nal first re­port­ed. As it turned out, at least six com­pa­nies in­clud­ing J&J, Te­va, Mallinck­rodt, Am­neal and the dis­trib­u­tors McKesson and Amerisource­Ber­gen have dis­closed in re­cent SEC fil­ings that they have re­ceived grand ju­ry sub­poe­nas from the US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice for the East­ern Dis­trict of New York.

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