Illicit Online Pharmacies (IOPs), Counterfeit Medicines, and the Enabling Financial Ecosystem

Authors

  • Louise Shelley Distinguished University Professor Emerita, George Mason University, Arlington, Va., USA Author
  • Layla Hashemi Women In International Security (WIIS), Washington, DC, USA Author
  • Edward Huang Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.65879/3070-6122.2026.2.05

Keywords:

Illicit online pharmacies, Counterfeits, Harmful pharmaceuticals, Cryptocurrency, Illicit financial flows, COVID-19, Transnational crime

Abstract

A sharp rise in illicit online pharmacies (IOPs) over the last decade poses significant threats to public health and safety because the unregulated medicines sold are often of inferior quality with no active ingredients or contain harmful chemicals. American consumers provide a major market for online pharmacies, of which 95% operate with flagrant disregard for the law [1, 2]. This article is based on research conducted by the authors analyzing hundreds of online pharmacies, with particular attention to the payment methods used by IOPs, a problem not previously examined in depth in other studies of online pharmacies. The research concluded that the predominant payment method was cryptocurrency, followed by credit cards and third-party payment processors. Use of cryptocurrency on a significant scale is often indicative of financial crime. We observed significant growth of illicit activity during the pandemic and IOPs followed the same trend as customers turned increasingly to online platforms for all forms of purchases. Unfortunately, the problem of dangerous and substandard medicines sold through IOPs continues on a massive scale in the post-pandemic era. New and dangerous products have joined the offerings initially studied, including counterfeit oncology drugs, weight loss drugs, and other newly developed medicines added to the profiles of IOPs. Therefore, IOPs are an increasingly pervasive form of illicit trade undermining human, national, and international security as well as intellectual property rights, and are often facilitated by an unaware and sometimes complicit financial community.

Author Biographies

  • Louise Shelley, Distinguished University Professor Emerita, George Mason University, Arlington, Va., USA

    Louise Shelley is a Distinguished University Professor Emerita, and Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Chair Emerita at George Mason University.

    She is a leading expert on the relationship among terrorism, organized crime, and corruption as well as human trafficking, transnational crime, and terrorism with a particular focus on the former Soviet Union. She also specializes in illicit financial flows and money laundering. Shelley was an inaugural Andrew Carnegie fellow. While on the Carnegie Corporation and Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio fellowship, she wrote the book, Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy is Threatening our Future, on illicit trade, the new technology, and sustainability, published by Princeton University Press in November 2018.

    Her previous books include Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism, published by Cambridge University Press, and Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective (Cambridge 2010). She is also the author of Policing Soviet Society (Routledge, 1996), Lawyers in Soviet Worklife, and Crime and Modernization, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on all aspects of transnational crime and corruption. She is also an editor (with Sally Stoecker) of Human Traffic and Transnational Crime: Eurasian and American Perspectives.

    From 1995-2014, Shelley ran programs in Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia with leading specialists on the problems of organized crime and corruption. She has also been the principal investigator of large-scale projects on money laundering from Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia and of training of law enforcement persons on the issue of trafficking in persons as well as wildlife trafficking. She has testified before the House Committee on International Relations Committee, the Helsinki Commission, the House Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Task Force on Terrorist Financing on transnational crime, human trafficking, and the links between transnational crime, financial crime, and terrorism. 

    Shelley served on the Global Agenda Council on Illicit Trade and Organized Crime of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and was the first cochair of its Council on Organized Crime. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has spoken at various international fora and at many universities both in the United States and abroad on transnational crime, terrorism, human trafficking, illicit trade, and corruption. Additionally, she often appears on television and radio, including appearances on CNN, NPR’s Marketplace and Takeaway, PBS, A&E, the History Channel, C-Span, Tavis Smiley, Kojo Nnamdi, and 60 Minutes as well as in the European media such as BBC, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Die Welt.

    Shelley held a Fulbright and researched and taught on crime issues in Mexico. She has also taught on transnational crime in Italy. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim, NEH, IREX, Kennan Institute, and Fulbright fellowships and received a MacArthur grant to establish the Russian Organized Crime Study Centers and completed a MacArthur grant studying nonstate actors and nuclear proliferation. In 1992, she received the Scholar-Teacher prize of American University, the top academic award of the university.

    She received her undergraduate degree in penology and Russian literature (cum laude) from Cornell University. She holds an MA in criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. She studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University on IREX and Fulbright fellowships and holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. 

  • Layla Hashemi, Women In International Security (WIIS), Washington, DC, USA

    Dr. Layla M. Hashemi is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at Women In International Security (WIIS). Previously, Layla was a researcher and data analyst at the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) focusing on international supply chains, cybercrime and illicit trade. She earned her PhD in Public Policy at George Mason University’s Schar School and her Masters in International Relations and Comparative Politics at New York University with a concentration in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She has held positions at governmental and non-governmental organizations including Forum 2000 and the Journal of Civil Society where she is currently Managing Editor. She was a professor at Montgomery College’s History and Political Science department for over 10 years and currently teaches at George Mason University and George Washington University. Her volunteer work includes moderating the Anti-Corruption Advocacy Network (ACAN), board member and research manager at the Security, Gender and Development Institute (SGDI) and Political Economy Project (PEP) coordinator at the Arab Studies Institute (ASI). She has presented her research — among other places — at NATO, the United Nations and professional conferences. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, academic journals and other outlets and she co-edited the Routledge volume Antiquities Smuggling in the Real and Virtual World (2022).

  • Edward Huang, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA

    Associate Professor, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University

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Published

2026-07-13

Issue

Vol. 2 (2026)

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Articles

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Copyright (c) 2026 Louise Shelley, Layla Hashemi, Edward Huang (Author)

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