Cancer drug scammer to be sentenced Aug. 2

An Edmonton man who pleaded guilty to selling a fake cancer drug on the internet will be sentenced Aug. 2 in a Phoenix, Ariz.,courtroom.

Hazim Gaber was convicted May 11 on five counts of wire fraud for selling a substance he purported to be sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) through the website DCAdvice.com.

DCA is an experimental cancer treatment currently being studied by researchers at the University of Alberta.

The U.S. Department of Justice found Gaber had sold a white powdery substance that was not DCAto at least 65 people in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Belgium and the Netherlands.

Laboratory tests showedthe powderwas a mixture of starch, dextrin, dextrose and lactose.

The package that came with the phony DCA contained a fake certificate of analysis from a non-existent lab along with instructions on how to take the product.

Gaber's website falsely claimed that it was the only legal supplier of DCA and was associated with the University of Alberta.

At the plea hearing in Phoenix, Gaber also confessed to selling more than 800 pirated copies of business software.

Gaber was arrested by U.S. authorities on July 25, 2009, in Frankfurt, Germany, and was extradited to the United States.

Gaber will appear before U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg on Aug. 2 and could receive a maximum prison term of 20 years on each of the five counts he was convicted of, along with fines of up to $1.25 million US.

Gaber has also agreed to forfeit or cancel any website, domain name or internet account related to his fraudulent scheme.

The case was investigated by the FBI's Phoenix Cyber Squad with the assistance of the Edmonton Police Service, Canada's Competition Bureau and the Alberta Partnership Against Cross Border Fraud.