Father, daughter charged in ‘all natural’ drug fraud

Officials have filed charges against a former Huntington Beach father and daughter for allegedly selling sexual enhancement drugs that contained an unregulated drug and labeling them as all-natural.

Phu Tan Luong, also known as Peter Luong, 55, and his daughter Helene Ngoc Bich Luong, 26, were charged with a misdemeanor for reportedly selling misbranded drugs in U.S. District Court on April 15, said Thom Mrozek, the public affairs officer for the U.S. attorney’s office.

The charges hold a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Peter Luong is serving a 10-year sentence in a federal prison in Pecos, Texas, for health-care fraud and is expected to be returned to Southern California for arraignment June 7. His daughter’s location is unknown, but she is believed to be in Canada.

The family allegedly distributed a drug called Vitalex as an all-natural version of sexual enhancement drugs like Viagra, Cialis or Levitra, but while it was labeled as an herbal supplement, it actually contained Acetidenafil-analog, an unregulated drug that poses a serious health risk.

The family allegedly obtained the ingredients from China and used a company called Vitapro Inc. to ship the sexual enhancement drugs around the country and internationally.

Peter Luong allegedly got the money to start the Vitapro business from an earlier health-care fraud scheme and ran it from prison with the help of his daughter.

He was convicted of 35 counts of health-care fraud and five counts of money laundering in 2005 after his company, United Medical Supply, submitted $14 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2006.

— Britney Barnes