Published on January 25th, 2012 | by James Johnson
0Feds Used Con Man To Orchestrate Google Pharmacy Sting In 2011
In 2011 officials from the Federal Government staged a sting against search giant Google in an attempt to prove that the company was illegally allowing Canadian pharmacies to advertise through the Google Adwords portal. We’ve not come to learn that that Feds were largely successful because they sought the help of a lifelong con-man.
According to reports the con man was still in prison when he helped investigators properly setup a fake online pharmacy in Canada while promising to sell illegal drugs.
Before he was arrestedĀ David Whitaker ran an online pharmacy that sold drugs to US customers that were not available without a prescription. It was Whitaker who first told officials that Google had helped him advertise his pharmacy and they then enlisted him to help setup the Google sting which focused on “blatantly illegal” websites pretending to sell prescription drugs under an alias.
According to Whitaker:
“Google’s employees were instrumental in bypassing policy regarding pharmacy verification.”
Thanks to his hard work Whitakers original sentence of 65 years was cut down to just 6 and Google was fined $500 million.