Two brothers were sentenced for selling prescription drugs on the black market. Lolita Lopez reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 15, 2019.
What to Know
- Two Brentwood brothers were sentenced in a $3 million bogus pharmacy scheme.
- Dalibor "Dabo" Kabov and older brother Berry operated Global Compounding Pharmacy.
- They were also ordered to pay $350,834 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
Two Brentwood brothers who pocketed over $3 million by creating a bogus pharmacy to obtain and distribute large quantities of OxyContin and other prescription narcotics to black-market customers were sentenced to 10 years each in federal prison, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Dalibor "Dabo" Kabov and older brother Berry -- operators of Global Compounding Pharmacy -- were also ordered by U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee to pay $350,834 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, with each brother being ordered to pay just over $175,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Now-defunct Global Compounding was found guilty of 17 counts including drug trafficking, drug importation, and tax fraud. The brothers were convicted in January 2017 in Los Angeles federal court of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, distribution of oxycodone, conspiracy to import controlled drugs, importation of anabolic steroids, money laundering and subscribing to false tax returns.
"It is disturbing that both defendants claim to have done nothing wrong," Gee said at the sentencing hearing Wednesday. "That is a mirage. There was overwhelming evidence of guilt."
Gee added that the Kabov brothers showed "no remorse" for their crimes.
"In the midst of a national opioid epidemic, these defendants used a seemingly legitimate pharmacy as a front to flood the black market with dangerous opioids for their own personal profit," U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said. "The lengthy sentences imposed should send a resounding message that medical and pharmacy professionals who seek to profit from the spread of opiate addiction will be met with severe punishment."
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Evidence presented at trial included recorded calls between Berry Kabov and a cooperating informant, during which the defendant described oxycodone pills as "gold" selling for as much as "50 bucks a pill" in areas like New York.
Berry Kabov, 48, offered to ship as many as 4,000 oxycodone pills per week to the informant, bragging that "we have a thing that we can move easy." Berry and his 35-year-old brother were also found guilty of illegally importing anabolic steroids purchased from a wholesale drug distributor located in Hubei, China.
On federal tax returns, the Kabovs understated their income by about $1.5 million. They falsely claimed to have suffered net losses in 2011 and 2012, while they were flying in private jets, staying in penthouse suites, and purchasing new luxury cars, such as a $100,000 Corvette, prosecutors said.
Evidence showed that at one point, Global Compounding was the top purchaser of oxycodone among all pharmacies in the Los Angeles area, ordering three times more oxycodone than the second-largest purchaser.
