A Long Island woman was charged after smuggling fake versions of Ozempic and other weight loss drugs into the U.S. then using TikTok to help sell the products, prosecutors said.
Isis Navarro Reyes — who also goes by Beraly Navarro — was arrested Wednesday on charges including smuggling, receiving misbranded drugs, dispensing prescription drugs without prescription and more.
According to the criminal complain, Reyes posted dozens of videos from Nov. 2022 through Nov. 2023 about weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Axcion and Mesotherapy, and more, telling viewers how they should be taken or injected. She also would describe supposed personal experiences with the drugs, detailing side effects and how effective the treatments were.
She would mention in several videos that people could contact her on an encrypted messaging app if they were looking to order Ozempic or the other drugs, the complaint stated.
Starting in Dec. 2023 and lasting over a month, Reyes unknowingly started talking with an undercover officer about her supply of the weight loss medication and how to purchase the drug from her. The undercover officer transferred $375 to Reyes based on her instructions; she did not ask for any type of prescription, and the undercover did not provide one, the criminal complaint stated.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Reyes dropped off a package supposedly containing Ozempic at a post office in Shirley, on Long Island. Days later, the officer received the package containing the fake drug.
One woman who purchased a phony weight loss drug from Reyes multiple times, administering 28 injections, ended up developing a serious drug-resistant infection as a result, according to prosecutors. She was told by Reyes to inject herself every three days with vials supposed to be Mesofrance — the labeling of which were in a language other than English, a violation of FDA regulations.
The victim developed lesions in July 2023, and her physician diagnosed her with a mycobacterium abscessus infection, which is frequently caused by contaminated medications, medical products and medical devices. The New York Department of Health tested one of the vials the woman used to inject herself, and it was found to have a rapidly growing, nontuberculous mycobacteria, according to prosecutors.
Reyes faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Attorney information for her was not immediately clear.
