The owner of Las Vegas-based Candy Color Lenses, a major colored contact lenses retailer in the U.S., pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and to introduce misbranded devices into interstate commerce, according to the Department of Justice.
A district court in Nevada found Dmitriv Melnik guilty of running an international operation that imported counterfeit and misbranded contact lenses from suppliers in Asia and sold them to tens of thousands of consumers without prescriptions in the U.S.
According to the plea agreement, Mr. Melnik imported large quantities of colored contact lenses from suppliers in China and South Korea despite knowing the products were counterfeit and unauthorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. Melnik said he often sold lenses labeled with the counterfeit trademark for Ciba Vision FreshLook Colorblends, a product manufactured by Switzerland-based Novartis International AG and commonly sold in the U.S.
While a substantial part of the operation was committed outside the U.S., Mr. Melnik admitted to receiving at least $1.2 million in revenue from the enterprise, including roughly $200,000 from the sale of counterfeit Ciba Vision brand contact lenses, according to the plea agreement.