Call Kurtis Investigates: Banned Diet Pills Still On Shelves

- FDA List Of Banned Diet Pills

It's been three months since Call Kurtis exposed area stores selling illegal and potentially deadly diet pills.   Each store agreed to take them off the shelves.    We returned to see if they're still being sold.

They're potentially lethal diet pills banned almost two years ago.

"Are they safe," our undercover producer asked.   "Yeah," a store clerk responded in November.

Not true.    The Food and Drug Administration says the diet pills from Asia are marketed under dozens of names like 2-day diet, Perfect Slim and 3x Slimming Power.   The FDA says the pills are laced with the dangerous drug Sibutramine, known to cause heart attacks and strokes.

Minutes after buying the pills from several stores in South Sacramento and San Jose in the fall, we returned to find out why they were selling them. Clerks in each store told us they had no idea the pills were banned.

"We don't know because we import them from the company," a clerk said.

"What company do you buy them from," I asked.

"I don't know because the owner isn't here."

Each store agreed to take them off the shelf.   Several of them thanked us for warning them. Three months later our hidden cameras are back at it checking to see if the pills stayed off the shelves.

"Do you have any of those diet pills," our undercover producer asks a clerk at a Chinese herbal store in South Sacramento.

"We don't sell those".

Glad to hear it.   A few doors down at the Marlbo Ginseng store we get a similar answer.

"No we don't sell them."

In fact, after sweeping each store we initially stung, we are pleased to report each has stopped selling the dangerous weight loss supplements. So we decided to randomly check a few new places stopping by the Bich Lien Beauty store in South Sacramento.

"We sell a lot here and customers say it works very well," the clerk tells our producer.

"Are they safe?"

"They're very safe," the clerk answered.

We walked out with the banned Perfect Slim Diet Pills. We also find banned pills at the NT Nail Salon in Sacramento's Pocket area, the New Asia Supermarket in South Sacramento and the Bich Lien Beauty store in San Jose.

Clerks at two of the locations told us they didn't know the pills were dangerous. We heard a surprising confession at the New Asia Supermarket.  They knew of the ban.

"I heard about that," Store Clerk Ronnie Duong told us.

"You did know they were illegal?  Why did you sell them to us?"

"I didn't sell them.  Someone sell them to you?"

"Yeah," I responded.

It was a colleague, but Duong says they shouldn't have.   He says he pulled the pills after seeing our first report placing them in a drawer.  He said his colleague should not have fished the pills out of the drawer to sell them.

I asked, "Before you saw it on the news did you have any idea these pills were illegal?"

"No.  Nobody let me know; a flyer from the FDA or anything," Duong responded.

So we posed the question to the FDA.  "What is the agency doing to get the message out to stores that these pills are dangerous?"

"To get down to the individual stores is extremely difficult," responded Michael Levy, FDA director of New Drug and Labeling Compliance.

Levy says they are focusing a step above the stores on distributors.

"And they should be actively engaged in the process of ensuring these dangerous products don't get in the hands of consumers," he said.

An elaborate undercover investigation brought down a suspected smuggling ring of illegal weight loss drugs.  It led federal agents to China, and Shenyang Zhou who according to federal records, claimed to manufacture the pills.   Agents posing as buyers then lured him to Hawaii where he ended up handcuffed.  Investigators linked Zhou's company to Plano, Texas where they arrested Qing Ming Hu for distributing the illegal pills across the country.    Both men have plead guilty and face years in prison when they are sentenced in a few months.

There's no doubt more smugglers and distributors are flying under the radar.

"We bought it from a guy in Colorado.  He ship it to us," Duong told I.

But after our investigation, the traffickers have lost some channels of getting these pills to Northern Californians.

"You're not going to sell them?" I asked Duong.

"No," he responded.

"You sure?"

"Positive."