CINCINNATI - Investigators probing Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, the maker of Enzyte penis enlargement pills, sent hundreds of the company's employees home and confiscated records during searches of three of the company's Cincinnati-area offices.
The law enforcement officials looked through file cabinets, computers and voice-mail systems on Wednesday as they searched for documents in a fraud investigation of the herbal supplement company.
No charges were filed and no arrests were made, but the bank accounts of one office were frozen.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service said the company's records will be examined to determine whether Berkeley violated mail-fraud laws. Berkeley customers have complained of being billed for products they didn't want after a 30-day free trial, investigators said.
"We are just going to get the items, and investigators are going to review them to see what we have," Postal Inspection Service agent Lisa Fitzpatrick said.
The Cincinnati-based company said in a statement that the investigators' actions "are unwarranted and counterproductive and do not take into account Berkeley's efforts to strengthen our customer satisfaction."
A recording at a phone number for the company said offices were closed Wednesday night, but company spokesman Chris Martin said earlier Wednesday that Berkeley planned to resume operations on Thursday.
The FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department and police departments in Cincinnati and suburban Forest Park and Blue Ash took part in Wednesday's raids. The Postal Inspection Service is the lead agency in the investigation.
More than 5,000 complaints about Berkeley's billing practices have been filed with the Cincinnati Better Business Bureau and the Ohio attorney general's office since the company began operations in 2001.
The search of the Berkeley buildings was authorized by a federal judge in a sealed affidavit. Federal investigators would not discuss the affidavit's contents.
Enzyte - the company's "natural male enhancement" product - is Berkeley's best-known product. It is promoted on TV by an android-like character named Smiling Bob.
The company also manufactures Avlimil, the female equivalent of Enzyte, and products designed to counteract high cholesterol, insomnia, fatigue, memory loss and deteriorating vision.
AFP
