A 45-year-old Indian national has been sentenced to 43 months in prison for conspiring to sell tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of counterfeit cancer medication that he privately compared to “just water.”
Sanjay Kumar’s six-year scheme to flood the U.S. market with fraudulent pharmaceuticals came to an end last week in a Houston court, where a judge also ordered one year of supervised release.
The sentencing follows his guilty plea last year to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, a charge that highlights a cold indifference toward patients fighting for their lives.
Between August 2018 and June 2024, Kumar and his associates orchestrated the sale of what they claimed was Keytruda, a high-stakes immunotherapy drug manufactured by Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, according to a Justice Department press release. In reality, the vials were dangerous imitations. Keytruda is a critical lifeline for patients diagnosed with advanced melanoma, lung cancer, and several other aggressive malignancies.
The investigation, led by Homeland Security Investigations and the Food and Drug Administration, revealed that the substances Kumar peddled were chemically inconsistent with the real medication. Laboratory tests confirmed the vials lacked any active ingredients, rendering them entirely ineffective against the diseases they were intended to treat.
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Undercover federal agents eventually ensnared Kumar after purchasing roughly $89,000 worth of the fake drug. During an in-person meeting in Houston prior to his arrest, Kumar reportedly admitted he was aware of the risks his products posed. He acknowledged to the agents that the counterfeit Keytruda would fail to treat cancer, callously likening the substance to plain water.
“The defendant’s actions were not just a violation of intellectual property; they were a direct assault on the hope of vulnerable patients,” federal prosecutors noted during the proceedings.
The case was prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
Officials emphasized that the sentence serves as a warning to international traffickers who view the American healthcare system as a target for fraud. The conviction is part of a broader crackdown by the CCIPS, which has secured over 180 convictions related to intellectual property and cybercrime since 2020.
For the patients who might have unknowingly received Kumar’s “water,” the sentence marks a final chapter in a case that put profit above human survival.