When Is False Advertising A Crime?

When is false advertising a crime? That was the issue recently considered by the First Circuit in United States v. Arif.

Mustafa Hassan Arif plead guilty to wire fraud, after having been charged with selling non-FDA approved drugs online that purported to cure hundreds of different diseases and medical conditions. He conditionally pled guilty, however, preserving two issues for appeal — (1) whether the government was required to prosecute him under the FTC Act and (2) whether his conviction for mail fraud was improper because of his good faith belief in the efficacy of his products. Arif was sentenced to seventy-two months in prison.

According to his guilty plea and the district court's findings of fact, Arif ran a multi-million dollar business from Pakistan, through about 1500 websites.  More than 1000 websites sold different drugs, and more than 400 were referral sites that posed as independent sites.  The sites included misleading e-mail addresses to make them