A wide array of dietary supplement companies caught with drug-spiked products are run by people with criminal backgrounds and regulatory run-ins, reports USA Today. Consumers buying products from these firms may be entrusting their health and safety to people with rap sheets for crimes involving barbiturates, crack cocaine, and other narcotics, as well as arrests for selling or possessing steroids and human growth hormone. Other supplement company executives have records of fraud, theft, assault, weapons offenses, money laundering or other offenses.
The newspaper looked at 100 companies that have been caught selling supplements secretly spiked with drugs and potentially dangerous chemicals since 2007. The examination found that at least 14 were run by people with criminal records beyond traffic infractions. There are likely many more supplement company executives with criminal records. The FDA’s tainted-supplements database lists 123 companies caught selling about 460 spiked products in the past six years, but the corporate records of nearly three dozen of the companies couldn’t be located. Supplement executives with criminal records said their pasts had nothing to do with their ability to make good supplements and they often blamed suppliers for putting drugs in their products without their knowledge.