Convicted Con Artist Spent $200K in Government Money to Help Feds Trap Google Illegal Pharmaceutical Sales

In 2009, the feds turned to a convicted con artist and federal prisoner to help it launch a sting against Google to find evidence of illegal online pharmaceutical sales. Evidence collected resulted in Google settling with a $500 forfeiture instead of being taken to court.

According to the Wall Street Journal's exclusive report, David Whitaker began helping the government after a string of crimes that landed him in prison in 2008. During his time in the sting, Whitaker spent $200,000 in government money and helped create several fake companies to catch Google in the act. The Wall Street Journal has more on Whitaker's involvement:

Mr. Whitaker told U.S. authorities about the alleged role Google played in helping his Mexico-based pharmacy.

Federal prosecutors, seeking to test the allegation, set up a task force in early 2009 with Mr. Whitaker's help. On weekdays, he was escorted from the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., to a former school department building in North Providence, R.I. There, under the watch of federal agents, he set a snare for Google.

Posing as the fictitious Jason Corriente, an agent for advertisers with lots of money to spend, Mr. Whitaker bypassed Google's automated advertising system to reach flesh-and-blood ad executives. Federal agents created www.SportsDrugs.net, designed to look "as if a Mexican drug lord had built a website to sell HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said in his account of the sting.

Google first rejected it, along with an anti-aging website called www.NotGrowingOldEasy.com. But the company's ad executives worked with Mr. Whitaker to find a way around Google rules, according to prosecutors and Mr. Whitaker's account.

[...]

"Google's employees were instrumental in bypassing policy regarding pharmacy verification," Mr. Whitaker told the Journal. "The websites were blatantly illegal."

Whitaker's involvement opened the door for agents to launch other fake illegal pharmaceutical companies that passed through Google.

Watch the Wall Street Journal report:

The Wall Street Journal reports Whitacker's involvement with the sting took four months. In the summer of 2009, the feds brought the evidence to Google. In 2011, Google reached a settlement -- instead of going to trail -- which included the forfeiture and it admitted to "improperly and knowingly" helping with illegal pharmaceutical drug sales by allowing advertisements, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Read more about the sting and Whitaker's history in the Wall Street Journal's full article.

[H/T Gizmodo]