"A Los Angeles-area woman has been convicted for smuggling human growth hormone into the United States, then selling it over the Internet to doctors and spas across the country.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which led the probe, said Friday that 61-year-old Rana J. Hunter, of Marina del Rey, had been convicted in U.S. District Court on eight criminal counts, including smuggling goods into the United States, knowingly distributing growth hormone for a use unauthorized by law and identity theft.
Prosecutors say Hunter's business also claimed to offer Botox. Samples tested turned out to be fake.
Hunter, who has been imprisoned since her July 2008 arrest, faces a maximum penalty of 39 years in federal prison."
The original bust story ( from before this blog started ) :
"The investigation leading to Hunter's arrest began in March 2007 after ICE agents in Los Angeles received a lead from ICE's Cyber Crimes Center in Virginia. According to the case affidavit, during the ensuing probe, U.S. Customs and Border Protection ( CBP ) officers intercepted numerous packages containing vials of HGH and counterfeit Botox from China that were addressed to the Marina Del Rey mailbox listed on the Internet as Westgate's business address. The parcels were mislabeled variously as synthetic hair pieces, plastic molds and "sample iron oxide."
Within the last two months, an ICE undercover agent, posing as a supplier for clinics and spas, contacted the phone number listed for Westgate on the Internet. As described in the affidavit, the ICE undercover agent ultimately made two buys, including multiple vials of HGH and a substance purported to be Botox, along with syringes and needles. A subsequent laboratory analysis revealed the HGH was genuine, but the substance being sold as Botox contained no evidence of the Botulinum toxin."
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