SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – FedEx delivered packages containing illegal prescription drugs for internet pharmacies even after it noticed that authorities were cracking down on the businesses and was told that one had shipped drugs to a woman who committed suicide, prosecutors said Monday as a trial began over drug trafficking charges against the shipping giant.
FedEx knew that drugs in millions of packages it delivered over a decade were illegally prescribed but shipped them anyway because it did not want to lose millions of dollars in revenue to rival UPS, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hemann said during his opening statement.
“They faced a choice, and the choice is to stop or go, and time and time again, they went,” Hemann said at the trial in San Francisco.
The government plans to rely on FedEx’s emails to make its case.
FedEx has denied the charges and says it only shipped what it believed were legal drugs from pharmacies licensed by states and registered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.