A Tampa pharmacist who turned two South Florida pharmacies into what prosecutors described as a cash-only oxycodone pipeline has been sentenced to 90 months — seven and a half years — in federal prison. Olushola Yusuf, 60, of Tampa, was sentenced for illegally dispensing more than 300,000 high-strength oxycodone pills to customers who had no medical need for the drug, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday, October 30.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
According to court documents and the evidence presented at her trial, Yusuf dispensed oxycodone to nearly all of her pharmacy customers. She charged customers approximately 10 times the typical cost of the drug and required payment in cash. In total, the Justice Department said, she dispensed at least 335,351 pills of oxycodone 30mg during the conspiracy.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
Two pharmacies: Margate and Pembroke Pines
Yusuf owned and operated two pharmacies — Boots LLC, doing business as Striderite (Boots), in Margate, and Chans Pharmacy Plus, Inc. (Chans), in Pembroke Pines, both in Broward County, South Florida. The Justice Department said customers drove long distances to have Yusuf fill prescriptions they could not get filled at any other pharmacy. Some customers were drug dealers who picked up oxycodone pills purportedly on behalf of dozens of patients at a time who were not present.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
The trial evidence painted a picture of a pharmacy run like a locked vault. According to witnesses, Yusuf kept the doors to her pharmacies locked during business hours, directing employees to open the door only for certain identified customers. And she continued dispensing oxycodone this way even after repeated warnings from her own employees and from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the dangers of her pharmacy operations.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
The recruiter who fed the pipeline
The pharmacies did not act alone. In a related case announced on October 15, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) said Jose Llerena, 49, of Miami, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance for his role as a 'patient recruiter' — he paid individuals to pose as patients and obtain illegal and unnecessary oxycodone prescriptions from South Florida clinics and doctors, then took his recruits and their prescriptions to Yusuf's pharmacies to get the pills. Yusuf kept a list of Llerena's recruits at her pharmacy, and Llerena paid her cash for the drug at above-market value. Llerena was personally responsible for distributing 3,735 oxycodone pills and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison; his sentencing date has not been set.
Why 30mg oxycodone is treated so seriously
Oxycodone 30mg is the maximum strength available of the drug, the Justice Department noted — both sought after and potentially dangerous because of its potency. It is typically prescribed to seriously ill patients, such as those suffering from chronic cancer pain or traumatic injuries. That is why a pharmacist dispensing it at ten times the normal price, for cash, to nearly every customer who walked in, sits at the centre of the federal government's long-running campaign against prescription-opioid diversion: the pills leave through a legal doorway, then feed an illegal market.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division; U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida; DEA Chief of Operations Matthew W. Allen; FBI Co-Deputy Director Christopher Raia; and Miranda L. Bennett, Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations at HHS-OIG. The case was investigated by the DEA, the FBI and HHS-OIG, and prosecuted by Trial Attorney Angela Benoit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline DerOvanesian.
The trial, and the co-defendant still waiting
After a two-week trial in July 2026, a federal jury convicted Yusuf of conspiracy to illegally distribute drugs and five counts of illegal drug distribution — a verdict also covered at the time by local South Florida reporting in Tamarac, near her Margate pharmacy. Her co-defendant, Saman Gimenez, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally distribute drugs and is scheduled to be sentenced later this year.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
Background: the strike-force numbers behind this case
The Justice Department used the sentencing to restate the scale of its health-care fraud machinery. It created a dedicated Fraud Division on April 7, 2026, and its Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program — nine strike forces operating in federal districts across the country — has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion since 2007. The department says that work supports the administration's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, sentencing announcement for Olushola Yusuf, Oct. 30, 2026
What this means for Florida's immigrant and diaspora communities
Margate and Pembroke Pines sit in one of the most diverse corners of Florida, and Tampa — Yusuf's home — has a growing South Asian community, including Punjabi families in trucking, hospitality and small retail. The practical lesson of this case for any diaspora pharmacist, clinic worker or pharmacy owner is stark: a professional licence is not a shield when the paperwork is false. Federal investigators followed the cash, the locked doors and the recruit lists, and the case ended not with a fine but with a seven-and-a-half-year prison term for a 60-year-old licence-holder.
What happens next
Yusuf's 90-month sentence is now the judgment of the federal court, and she will serve it in federal prison. Two threads of the wider conspiracy remain open: co-defendant Saman Gimenez is to be sentenced later this year, and recruiter Jose Llerena awaits a sentencing date after his October guilty plea. For customers who received pills through the two pharmacies, there is no suggestion in the announcements that patients face charges — the prosecutions have targeted the people who organised and profited from the distribution.