Canada Drugs otherwise known as CanadaDrugs.com, was an online pharmacy based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
It was started in 2001 by former Manitoba pharmacist Kristjan Thorkelson as an offshoot of a chain of four local pharmacies, called The Prescription Shop, in Winnipeg. With the company being one of the first in the suddenly-growing Canadian internet mail-order pharmacy industry, Thorkelson was hailed as an "internet pharmacy pioneer."
It eventually became Canada's largest pharmacy, providing worldwide prescription services and had filled over 1,000,000 international and Canadian prescriptions through its mail-order facilities. American prosecutors accused the company of having made at least $78 million through illegal imports, including two that were counterfeit versions of the cancer drugs Avastin and Altuzan that had no active ingredients.
Origin
Canada Drugs was started in 2001 by former Manitoba pharmacist Kristjan Thorkelson as an offshoot of a chain of four local pharmacies, called The Prescription Shop, in Winnipeg. With the company being one of the first in the suddenly-growing Canadian internet mail-order pharmacy industry, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also named Kristjan Thorkelson, Canada Drugs' founder, in the investigation.
In November 2014, United States authorities charged the six Canadian men with smuggling goods into the United States, conspiracy and international money laundering: Winnipeggers Kristjan Thorkelson, Thomas Haughton, Ronald Sigurdson, Darren Chalus, and Troy Nakamura; and B.C. resident James Trueman. Thorkelson is Canada Drugs' founder; Haughton, Thorkelson's brother-in-law, owned several drug distribution companies in Barbados and the United Kingdom; Sigurdson was listed as a chief financial officer for Canada Drugs; and Chalus and Nakamura were managers of drug sales for several of the companies. Another man, Ram Kamath, was also named in the Canada Drugs charges but had his single charge of smuggling dropped in 2015 in exchange for his cooperation with authorities.
CanadaDrugs.com was required to surrender the domain names for the websites it used to illegally sell drugs to Americans, and cease operations on 13 July 2018.