Chinese trader convicted in fake drug scheme

HOUSTON (AP) - A federal jury convicted a Chinese trader on Thursday of trying to send fake versions of prescription drugs to the United States.

Kevin Xu, 36, is set to be sentenced in September after being found guilty of conspiracy, misbranding drugs and trafficking in counterfeit goods. Prosecutors said the fake drugs that allegedly were to be used to treat prostate cancer, blood clots, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease never reached unsuspecting Americans.

European authorities say Xu's Orient Pacific International breached a highly regulated distribution system in the United Kingdom and U.S. officials, tipped by major drug companies, said they went undercover to stop him from doing the same in the United States. He was arrested in July 2007 after a year-long sting.

Xu's lawyer, Colin Amann, said his client is a middle man who trades in steel, sugar and petrochemicals not a fake drug manufacturer.

Amann said he will appeal the verdict, saying the government didn't prove its case.

"In the conspiracy, the prosecutors never associated him with another identified individual. It takes two to tango," Amann said in Thursday's online edition of the Houston Chronicle.

According to testimony this week by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, investigators arranged for Xu to send products to an undercover mailbox in Houston in late 2006 through early 2007. Tests by the legal manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that the medications labeled Tamiflu, Casodex, Zyprexa, Plavix and Aricept sent by Xu were fake.

"The jury heard that the drugs Mr. Xu sent to the U.S were counterfeit and had already reached the marketplace in the U.K., placing citizens there at great risk," Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Louis said. "Mr. Xu was trying to set up the same distribution scheme here."