2 Arrested in Probe of Illegal Pharmacies

Federal officials eager to crack down on black-market pharmacies on Friday announced the arrests of a Wilmington man and a Santa Ana woman suspected of illegally selling medicine.

Luis Torrez, 61, was arrested at his Pioneer Avenue home Friday on suspicion of selling “misbranded and unapproved prescription drugs” from mid-1994 through Feb. 9, according to the U. S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

In a separate case, Rosa Alexandra King surrendered to authorities Feb. 8 after she was indicted last year for dispensing pharmaceuticals in Orange County.

She has been implicated in the death of a 15-year-old paraplegic boy who went into convulsions after taking the banned drug Lincocin, officials said.

In addition, authorities said several King family members are suspects in the 1999 death of an 18-month-old Tustin girl who received an illegal injection at a Santa Ana gift shop owned by the Kings.

In December, U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas and other law enforcement officials announced a crackdown on black-market pharmacies. The effort led to the indictment of 17 people, including King, on federal charges.

“We have continued, and we will continue to [pursue] these black-market pharmacies that endanger the lives of vulnerable residents in [our] district,” Mayorkas said in a statement Friday.

Torrez, who was nicknamed “El Doctor,” smuggled illegal drugs from Tijuana and fraudulently told customers that he was a medical doctor, officials said.

“Torrez’s arrest is a significant development in the sense that local and federal investigators have heard, as a result of the December crackdown, many of the black-market pharmacies are going deeper underground,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph O. Johns.

King had been a fugitive in Mexico since the Tustin girl’s death, but her attorney negotiated her surrender with the understanding that she would be allowed to post bail, Johns said. She is free on $100,000 bail, he added.