worked as Le Roux's shipper in Kentucky. In exchange for testif- ing against Oz and the remaining defendants, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to one of his twenty-three counts, carrying a maximum of five years in prison.

Three more RX Limited figures were still at large. Omer Bezalel, the Israeli who'd worked with McConnell in Florida, had, like Oz, been lured to Romania and then extradited to Minnesota. But after he was released on bail to a halfway house, he walked away, presumably returning to Israel, beyond the reach of American au- thorities. Alon Berkman was in hiding. Shai Reuven, according to beach and nightclub photos he posted on Facebook, seemed to be living unperturbed in the Philippines.

That left five defendants who had refused to take plea deals: Moran Oz and Lachlan McConnell, who were accused of handling operations for the network; Prabhakara Tumpati and another Pennsylvania doctor, Elias Karkalas, who'd written prescriptions for it; and the pharmacist from Detroit, Babubhai Patel, who was already serving a seventeen-year sentence for healthcare fraud. Charles Schultz, like most of the other pharmacists, was indicted in his home state. He pleaded to a single count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. "I only have myself to blame," he said in court. A judge fined him $350,000, but declined to impose jail time due to Schultz's failing health. "The prosecution of him was an act of cruelty," his lawyer Hal Harlowe told me. "He was old and infirm. He had gone through his whole life with a good reputation. I think convicting an eighty-two-year-old man to have another notch in their belt was unfortunate."

I asked Bailey why the myriad other people involved in the or- ganization at different levels, from Levi Kugel to Tomer Taggart, escaped indictment. Why prosecute this group, among the many people who'd arguably played serious roles in the business. "There is always going to be somebody who by the grace of God missed it," Bailey said. "It comes down to prosecutorial discretion." The investigators had made their argument, he said, barely containing