Prescription Plot Leads To Federal Indictments

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SAN FRANCISCO—Federal authorities have uncovered an alleged scheme in which a San Francisco doctor wrote falsified painkiller prescriptions to local homeless individuals while his wife laundered the money netted from the transactions.

Authorities believe the plot netted Dr. Colin Leong and his wife Mabel Leong hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Prescription
The investigation allegedly proves that the Leongs were exchanging prescriptions of oxycodone and hydrocodone for cash, money that was then laundered by Mabel Leong to cover their tracks.

Mabel Leong made her initial appearance in San Francisco’s U.S. District Court on April 9. The case against Collin Leong is currently pending. The doctor was indicted in February on several charges of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

The investigation allegedly proves that the Leongs were exchanging prescriptions of oxycodone and hydrocodone for cash, money that was then laundered by Mabel Leong to cover their tracks.

The scheme, first beginning in 2007, hauled-in about $400,000 of cash, as Collin Leong told drug agents that the prescriptions were sold for between $80 to $150 each.

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Jared Lindley estimated in an affidavit that 1 million hydrocodone tablets and 989,000 oxycodone tablets were distributed by Collin Leong.

He maintains that his wife had no knowledge of any criminal wrongdoing. This runs counter to evidence dug-up by agents that showed Mabel Leong to be the one running the financial side of her husband’s medical practice.

“There is probable cause to infer that Mabel Leong knew the funds at issue were criminally derived,” Lindley wrote in the affidavit.