Major shipments of Mexican prescription drugs are being smuggled into Southern California from Tijuana, fueling ever greater sales through illegal back room clinics and storefronts, state and federal officials say.
The pervasive black market sales, mainly by Latino merchants, have emboldened shop owners not only to sell pharmaceuticals to immigrant customers but to take a more dangerous new step: Some merchants are giving injections and practicing medicine on customers.
Tustin police are investigating whether the illegal practice contributed to the death Monday of 18-month-old Selene Segura Rios. She died two hours after receiving what her parents were told was a penicillin injection in the back room of a toy store.
She was the second Latino child in the last 10 months to die after receiving injections from unlicensed practitioners in Orange County.
"Stores selling illegal prescription drugs of all kinds are a pervasive problem in the Hispanic community," said Howard Ratzky, the state's supervising drug investigator for Southern California. "It's very hard to stop, and nobody knows how many stores out there are engaging in this."
Ratzky said the issue has gone beyond "the trend of an unlicensed store selling prescription drugs." Some stores, he said, "have begun offering medical treatment by people identifying themselves as physicians."
"Unfortunately, immigrants know where these places are. They'll go to the back of the store and . . . an untrained person will give a kid an injection," a U.S. Customs agent said.
The problem with Mexican drugs is that many are counterfeit medicines and the quality control is lax, said Customs Agent Lisa Fairchild. "A scarier danger is that sometimes the packets don't contain the medication that the label says is inside," Fairchild said.
On Wednesday, the same day that Tustin police announced Selene's death, state agents and local police raided the Trolley Minimart on Valley Boulevard in El Monte. Investigators seized syringes and numerous pharmaceuticals manufactured in Mexico and hidden in false bottoms of cleanser containers and disguised in vitamin bottles, Ratzky said.
Los Angeles and Orange counties "are a big market for pharmaceuticals smuggled from Tijuana," said a U.S. Customs agent who specializes in cases involving illegal prescription drugs. "The problem has grown dramatically in the last three or four years, but nobody has a handle on how much is being brought across."
