Report: Hellertown Pharmacy Illegally Sold Painkiller

In spite of extensive media coverage--including several reports that aired on WFMZ Channel 69 News--details about Thursday's apparent raid by federal agents at Hellertown Pharmacy remain scarce.

However, a news article published in March of this year indicates that this was not the borough business's first brush with the law.

The March 22, 2012 article by Patrick Springer, "North Dakota Cracking Down on Illegal Web Prescriptions," was published by Bakken Today, which bills itself as an "online source for western North Dakota and oil news."

According to the story, Hellertown Pharmacy was one of three out-of-state pharmacies that illegally sold the painkiller Tramadol to North Dakota residents.

Specifically, the local drugstore was accused of two documented Internet sales of the drug without a valid patient-physician relationship, and with failure to report sales to a drug monitoring program.

The North Dakota Board of Pharmacy required the pharmacies involved in the sales to stop selling the drug, and they were subject to fines.

WFMZ reported Thursday night that agents from the FBI, the DEA and the IRS were at Hellertown Pharmacy throughout the day Thursday, and that both boxes and computer equipment were removed.

Customers who tried to enter were turned away at the door.

The TV news station said agents at the scene wouldn't say what they were doing, and a call to a DEA spokesperson was not immediately returned.

Hellertown Pharmacy is a relatively new arrival to the borough's business scene, having opened with much fanfare in late 2010.