Two Miami men sentenced in $28M scheme involving diverted HIV and cancer drugs
Key Points(5)
- District Judge Darrin P.
- Gayles sentenced Boris Arencibia, 52, and Jose Armando Rivera Garcia, 45, to 57 months in prison, to be served concurrently with 43-month sentences they also received in a separate 2025 case.
- The drugs—requiring strict temperature and storage controls to remain safe—were kept with no safeguards before being moved through the conspirators’ distribution network.</p> <p data-start="1248" data-end="1502">“Diverted drugs put patients’ lives at risk,” said U.S.
- Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.
- The medications were then sold through sham pharmaceutical distribution companies to pharmacies nationwide.
Two Miami men have been sentenced to federal prison for their roles in two related schemes that funneled diverted and misbranded prescription drugs—including medications used to treat HIV and cancer—into pharmacies across the United States.
On Oct. 30, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles sentenced Boris Arencibia, 52, and Jose Armando Rivera Garcia, 45, to 57 months in prison, to be served concurrently with 43-month sentences they also received in a separate 2025 case. In total, prosecutors say the men trafficked about $28 million worth of diverted pharmaceuticals.
According to court documents, Arencibia and Rivera Garcia bought high-cost medications from illicit street sources, including patients who sold their prescriptions rather than taking them, and individuals who obtained prescriptions through fraud. The drugs—requiring strict temperature and storage controls to remain safe—were kept with no safeguards before being moved through the conspirators’ distribution network.
“Diverted drugs put patients’ lives at risk,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “These defendants pushed tainted and repackaged medications into pharmacies across the country, knowing full well the danger.”
Fake companies, falsified records and tainted bottles
Investigators say members of the conspiracy repackaged the drugs and falsified documentation to make them appear as though they came from legitimate manufacturers or wholesalers. The medications were then sold through sham pharmaceutical distribution companies to pharmacies nationwide. Some bottles purchased by unsuspecting patients contained incorrect medications, vitamins or even pebbles.
The first case, indicted in 2019, charged 20 defendants. All but one fugitive have now been sentenced to terms ranging from 30 months to 14 years. Arencibia was identified as a major supplier of diverted drugs, while Rivera Garcia operated LDD Distributors, a shell corporation that handled the fraudulent products before reselling them to another conspirator’s wholesale business. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The second case, filed in 2025, accused the pair of running a wholesale company that marketed diverted drugs to pharmacies using falsified paperwork to hide the medicines’ true origins and mishandling. They pleaded guilty to trafficking in medical products with falsified documentation.
Federal authorities say the schemes endangered patients who rely on life-saving HIV and cancer medications and undermined the integrity of the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain.
The cases were investigated by the FDA, HHS-OIG, the FBI and other federal partners.
