Texas couple sentenced for selling smuggled veterinary drugs, pesticides online

A Garland, Texas, wife and husband were sentenced in federal court to prison and probation, respectively, on charges stemming from their operation of a website that sold veterinary drugs and pesticides smuggled into the United States from Mexico, according to the Justice Department.

Thao Duong was sentenced to three months in prison, two years of supervised release and forfeiture of more than $1.5 million, prosecutors said. Her husband, Lam Mai, who served as the website’s shipping manager, was sentenced to two years of probation.

“The defendants in this case traded human safety and environmental health for illicit profit,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division said in a statement. Officials from the EPA, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas and the FDA also condemned the operation. EPA Assistant Administrator Jeffrey A. Hall called illegal Mexican pesticides and animal steroids “a dangerous combination,” while U.S. Attorney Ryan R. Raybould described trafficking toxic chemicals into the country as “a blatant assault on our national security and public safety.”

According to court filings and evidence presented in court, Duong began selling animal care products online around 2011, primarily to customers involved in rooster-fighting ventures. She was not a veterinarian and did not require customers to provide veterinary prescriptions. Duong also sold Mexican-produced veterinary drugs that were not approved by the FDA for use in the United States.

In 2017, Duong added the pesticides Taktic and Bovitraz to her inventory. Neither product was registered with the EPA for sale or use and therefore could not legally be sold in the United States.

Duong launched a website in 2018 that became her primary means of selling and distributing the products. She then entered into agreements with several co-conspirators to purchase veterinary drugs and pesticides that she knew had been smuggled into the United States from Mexico, the department said.

The products entered through the Calexico Port of Entry in Imperial County, California, were stored near the border and were then shipped by Duong’s co-conspirators to Texas. Between 2018 and 2022, Duong obtained approximately $2.4 million worth of smuggled merchandise.

Mai packaged the pesticides and veterinary drugs after orders were received and shipped them to customers nationwide using the U.S. Postal Service and other carriers.

The EPA said the active ingredient in Taktic and Bovitraz, amitraz, is toxic to bees when released into hives and can subsequently contaminate honey, honeycomb and beeswax. Human exposure through contaminated honey products could cause neurological effects and possibly reproductive effects, according to the agency.

The EPA and FDA investigated the case with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Trial Attorney Lauren D. Steele of the Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Vincent J. Mazzurco and Madeleine Case for the Northern District of Texas prosecuted the case.

The Energy and Natural Resources Division is a member of the Justice Department’s Trade Fraud Task Force, a cross-agency initiative that pursues tariff and duty evasion as well as the smuggling of prohibited goods into the United States.