Eduard Yusupov and Diana Fuzailov, of Wading River, plead guilty to selling $3.6M in illegal sex pills
![Diana Fuzailov and Eduard Yusupov leave federal court in Central Islip Thursday...](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.newsday.com%2Fimage-service%2Fversion%2Fc%3AOGQ2OTMwNGMtN2IzMi00%3ANGMtN2IzMi00NTFhNWJm%2Flipills240809_photos.jpg%3Ff%3DLandscape%2B16%253A9%26w%3D770%26q%3D1&w=1920&q=80)
Diana Fuzailov and Eduard Yusupov leave federal court in Central Islip Thursday after pleading guilty. Credit: John Roca
A Wading River couple admitted Thursday to illegally selling more than $3.6 million in male and female sexual enhancement supplements from an online business they ran out of their East End home.
Eduard Yusupov, 42, and Diana Fuzailov, 34, both pleaded guilty during a plea agreement hearing in federal court in Central Islip to introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert.
The husband and wife said they mixed pills purchased mostly from China containing sildenafil citrate, the active ingredient in Viagra, into capsules marketed as all-natural supplements and sold them to unknowing customers from around the country.
They operated the business, Love Potion Inc., between July 2016 and February 2022, selling the products through their website and mailing the boxes from their local post office, according to prosecutors and the couple’s own admission.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A Wading River couple admitted Thursday to illegally selling more than $3.6 million in sexual enhancement supplements from an online business they operated out of their East End home.
- Eduard Yusupov, 42, and Diana Fuzailov, 34, both pleaded guilty to introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and wire fraud in federal court in Central Islip.
- They operated the business, Love Potion Inc., between July 2016 and February 2022, selling the products through their website and mailing the boxes from their local post office, according to prosecutors and the couple’s own admissions.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justina Geraci told the court Yusupov and Fuzailov marketed their products as FDA-approved and that their website and packaging materials did not list ingredients. Testing, however, following a U.S. Postal Inspection Service search of the boxes showed the product, colored pills with a powdery substance inside, contained "the presence of undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients," including sildenafil citrate.
"The website promoted the sale of male and female sexual enhancement products that claimed to be all-natural products," Geraci said. "Some were claimed to be FDA-registered. That was not actually what they were."
Geraci specifically noted two of the products, a female-marketed capsule called "Kangaroo" and a male-targeted capsule labeled "Rhino," she said promoted "heightened sexual function." The products contained enough of the erectile dysfunction drug to give customers the appearance of working, Geraci said.
As part of the investigation, federal agents made purchases of the products, which they had shipped to Massachusetts and had a laboratory test them.
"I knew what I did was wrong and illegal," Yusupov said during the allocution of his plea, a sentence later repeated by his wife.
Fuzailov and Yusupov also both admitted that while some of their products were marketed as FDA-approved, they were not.
"I did not have that designation," they each said.
Both Yusupov’s attorney, Jonathan Kaye, of Queens, and Samuel Eliceo Manrique, of Manhattan, who represented Fuzailov, declined to comment outside court.
Homeland Security Investigations, the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, led a Feb. 17, 2022, raid of the Yusupovs’ home on St. Andrew’s Path and a neighboring home on Taconic Court owned by a family member. Agents were spotted loading hundreds of boxes into box trucks and postal trucks while executing a search warrant at the homes, located in a quiet subdivision off Wading River Manor Road.
As part of the plea agreement, Yusupov and Fuzailov agreed to each forfeit more than $1.8 million in proceeds from the criminal scheme.
Yusupov has two prior felony convictions in federal court, where in 2005 he admitted selling, along with his brother and father, more than $9.5 million in counterfeit cash and conspiring to sell counterfeit DVDs, and was convicted by a jury in 2008 for again selling counterfeit money. He was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for those prior offenses.
Seybert said prosecutors estimate a guideline sentence of between 57 and 71 months for Yusupov, given his criminal history, and 41 to 51 months for Fuzailov, who has no prior convictions.
Prosecutors and the defense will make formal sentencing recommendations in January.
Seybert will make the ultimate determination when they are sentenced Jan. 16.
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