A 47-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday in Los Angeles to his role in a long-running scheme to smuggle fraudulent dietary supplement ingredients into the United States from China.
Bao Luu, of Mira Loma, entered his plea to one federal count of “causing food to become misbranded while held for sale after the shipment of a component in interstate commerce,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 22.
An indictment filed in 2018 also charged Lynn Chau, 48, of Rosemead, and Pure Assay Ingredients Inc., Chau’s import company located in City of Industry. Two Chinese citizens who worked for Pure Assay in Chengdu, China, were also charged.
According to the indictment, the defendants conspired to deceive the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors by falsely labeling designer steroids and stimulants as non-controversial substances.
The indictment states that the defendants sold the smuggled substances to dietary supplement manufacturers in the United States for use in consumer products. In one instance, prosecutors say, Luu and Chau assembled a false shipment to fool FDA into believing that Pure Assay destroyed substances the agency blocked from distribution.
In reality, Pure Assay already had shipped out the real products and presented mislabeled substitutes for destruction, prosecutors contend.
Chau and Pure Assay have a trial date set in March in Los Angeles federal court.