In 2022, federal agents arrived at a home on the North Shore of Long Island bursting with so much contraband that they needed trucks for it all.
When the tractor-trailers drove off two days later, they were filled with pills called Rhino and Kangaroo that promised bedroom bliss approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
On Friday, a federal judge on Long Island sentenced the married couple behind the business, Eduard Yusupov and Diana Fuzailov, after they had pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. The pills, which they had claimed were natural supplements, had in fact contained the active ingredient in Viagra.
Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced Mr. Yusupov to a year and a day in prison, while Ms. Fuzailov received three years of probation. Prosecutors had sought several years in prison for each.
“Mr. Yusupov and his wife made millions from this,” Justina L. Geraci, a federal prosecutor with the Eastern District of New York, said in court.
Mr. Yusupov sat next to his lawyer looking down at his hands while Judge Seybert read out the charges.
“The customer was not getting a natural drug,” she said.
The pills, federal prosecutors said, were primarily produced in China and then shipped to the couple’s home in Wading River, N.Y. From there, Mr. Yusupov and Ms. Fuzailov, sold the pills online through their company, Love Potion Inc.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Yusupov and Ms. Fuzailov claimed the drugs were federally approved dietary supplements. In reality they contained sildenafil, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in Viagra, which must be sold via prescription.
The couple made a total of $3.6 million from selling the mislabeled products, according to prosecutors. The pills promised a variety of enticing sexual improvements for both men and women.
In recent years, as experts say erectile dysfunction has grown more prevalent among younger men as a result of psychological and vascular problems, so has the demand for supplements. Global sales for the overall supplement market were nearly $500 billion in 2024 and are projected to grow to more than $700 billion in 2030, according to a recent report from Grand View Research.
Federal health officials have increasingly cracked down on the products, which they say have not been proved effective. Moreover, health officials say, these supplements often contain unhealthy, undeclared levels of ingredients used in prescription drugs that could have dangerous side effects.
“Of course, there is no such F.D.A. designation for these advertised supplements,” prosecutors wrote in a recent court filing.
Federal investigations have uncovered that many sex supplements, including those often sold at gas stations, contain the same active ingredients found in Viagra and Cialis. For people taking certain prescription medications containing nitrates, the interaction between the nitrates and the undeclared ingredients in the sex pills can dangerously lower blood pressure.
Addressing the judge, Mr. Yusupov said that he was “100 percent at fault” and that he was “addicted” to “buying, buying, buying” the pills, wholesaling them online and to bodegas and gas stations.
Jonathan Kaye, Mr. Yusupov’s lawyer, had asked that his client be sentenced to home confinement so he could take care of his children, ages 6, 8 and 14. But Judge Seybert, who during the proceeding called Mr. Yusupov’s sentence “extremely lenient,” said that the false advertising could have caused harm to customers.
“There’s a reason for the regulation,” she said.
In recent postings on its website, the F.D.A. has listed a number of sex supplements — including “Black Panther Miracle Honey for Men” and “Wildman” — that it says contain hidden ingredients. Selling contaminated products, the agency says, is a form of medical fraud.
Dr. Rachel Rubin, a urologist and sex medicine specialist in Maryland, said that people were increasingly turning to these supplements because standard medicine had not focused enough on sexual dysfunction, which she said was “an unbelievably common issue.”
“They’re going to Reddit, they’re going to unregulated sources,” Dr. Rubin said. “They want their problems solved.”
Nearly 200 parcels of sex pills were delivered to the couple’s home over five years, prosecutors said. In March 2021, customs officials seized and searched two of these parcels, finding more than 20,000 capsules in blue, black and gold. When officials tested the powder in each, they found sildenafil.
Dr. Rubin, who called the supplements “very scary” for their potential side effects, said that until modern medicine addressed what she called a “quality of life” issue, people will continue to seek out dubious sources.
“The reality is that medical professionals aren’t treating these problems,” Dr. Rubin said. “Where else are they going to go?”
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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