Financial Crime: Anti-smoking and male-enhancement drug maker charged with fraud after months on the lam

by | Nov 30, 2023 | Stock Market

The late-night infomercials made lots of claims about the dissolvable oral strips being sold. Depending on the ad, Redwood Scientific Technologies
RSCI,
-42.73%
said they could help people quit smoking, lose weight or help men perform longer in bed. “I used Prolongz last night and this morning, if you know what I mean,” claimed one man in a testimonial for the company’s homeopathic, male enhancement drug featured in one of their 30-minute infomercials. 

The claims about the effectiveness of Prolongz, homeopathic smoking cessation drug, TBX-Free and weight-loss strip, Eupepsia Thin, soon caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. After years of legal wrangling, a judge ruled that the California company had made false claims about the efficacy of the drugs, and ordered them to halt operations. Then early last year, federal prosecutors secured a criminal indictment accusing the company’s head, Jason Edward Thomas Cardiff, 48, of fraud for allegedly charging customers over and over again for drugs they never asked for and for allegedly getting employees to destroy documents the FTC had sought as part of their probe. The problem for prosecutors was that Cardiff had left the country, according to court documents, selling his house in Upland, California and moving to Ireland where he has dual citizenship with his daughter and wife, with whom he had run Redwood Scientific.  The case remained under seal until earlier this week, when authorities had a stroke of luck: Cardiff returned to Los Angeles to visit his aili …

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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe late-night infomercials made lots of claims about the dissolvable oral strips being sold. Depending on the ad, Redwood Scientific Technologies
RSCI,
-42.73%
said they could help people quit smoking, lose weight or help men perform longer in bed. “I used Prolongz last night and this morning, if you know what I mean,” claimed one man in a testimonial for the company’s homeopathic, male enhancement drug featured in one of their 30-minute infomercials. 

The claims about the effectiveness of Prolongz, homeopathic smoking cessation drug, TBX-Free and weight-loss strip, Eupepsia Thin, soon caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. After years of legal wrangling, a judge ruled that the California company had made false claims about the efficacy of the drugs, and ordered them to halt operations. Then early last year, federal prosecutors secured a criminal indictment accusing the company’s head, Jason Edward Thomas Cardiff, 48, of fraud for allegedly charging customers over and over again for drugs they never asked for and for allegedly getting employees to destroy documents the FTC had sought as part of their probe. The problem for prosecutors was that Cardiff had left the country, according to court documents, selling his house in Upland, California and moving to Ireland where he has dual citizenship with his daughter and wife, with whom he had run Redwood Scientific.  The case remained under seal until earlier this week, when authorities had a stroke of luck: Cardiff returned to Los Angeles to visit his aili …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]

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