United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy | U.S. Department of Justice
A Lexington, Massachusetts doctor has been sentenced in a federal court for his involvement in an international money laundering scheme related to the importation of illegal and misbranded drugs. Rahim Shafa, aged 66, received a three-year prison sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman. Following his prison term, Shafa will undergo three years of supervised release. Additionally, he has been ordered to pay $115,765 in restitution and a $150,000 fine.
Shafa was convicted in February 2024 after a 14-day jury trial on charges including international money laundering and illegally importing merchandise contrary to law. The indictment was initially issued by a federal grand jury in August 2020 and later superseded in June 2021.
As the owner and operator of Novel Psychopharmacology (Novel), Shafa engaged in the illicit activities from January 2008 through January 2018. He purchased naltrexone pellet implants as well as disulfiram pellet implants and injections from Hong Kong. While these substances are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for certain treatments, their implantable pellet forms are not FDA-approved.
To conceal the origin of these drugs shipped from Hong Kong to Massachusetts, Shafa falsified shipping documents—declaring packages containing naltrexone pellets as "plastic beads in plastic tubes." These drugs were sold to patients at Novel without fully understanding their risks, leading to reported infections and complications following implantation procedures.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy alongside Fernando P. McMillan, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations; Roberto Coviello, Special Agent in Charge at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General; with assistance from local law enforcement agencies including Massachusetts State Police, Milford Police Department, and Lexington Police Department.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John T. Mulcahy, Howard Locker, and Kaitlin J. Brown from the Criminal Division.
