Liberty Pharmacy Inc., Metro Care Pharmacy Inc., RiteCare Pharmacy Inc., United Pharmacy Upper Darby Inc.
Outcome
DEA issued Order to Show Cause and Immediate Suspension of Registrations to all four pharmacies October 31, 2023; revoked DEA Certificates of Registration Nos. FL2056908, FM2936120, FR5934244, and FU0598790 effective May 27, 2025; Liberty Pharmacy alone showed ~100% variance between its controlled substance purchase invoices and PDMP data — 283,400 alprazolam 1mg units, 573,200 alprazolam 2mg units, and 3,354 bottles of promethazine with codeine unaccounted for.
Details
Liberty Pharmacy, Metro Care Pharmacy, RiteCare Pharmacy, United Pharmacy Upper Darby — DEA Quad-Pharmacy Immediate Suspension (2023–2025)
Outcome: DEA issued Orders to Show Cause and Immediate Suspension of Registrations to all four Philadelphia-area pharmacies on October 31, 2023, finding their continued registration constituted an imminent danger to public health; DEA revoked all four DEA Certificates of Registration (Nos. FL2056908, FM2936120, FR5934244, FU0598790) effective May 27, 2025; Liberty Pharmacy alone showed approximately 100% variance between purchase invoices and PDMP-reported dispensing data for hundreds of thousands of benzodiazepine doses.
On October 31, 2023, the DEA issued simultaneous Orders to Show Cause and Immediate Suspension of Registrations to four related Philadelphia-area pharmacies: Liberty Pharmacy Inc., Metro Care Pharmacy Inc., RiteCare Pharmacy Inc., and United Pharmacy Upper Darby Inc. The agency alleged that all four pharmacies' continued registrations constituted an imminent danger to public health and safety, and that their continued registrations were inconsistent with the public interest.
The investigation revealed extreme accounting failures. Liberty Pharmacy's controlled substance order invoices showed approximately 100% variance with PDMP-reported dispensing data. Specifically, investigators found approximately 283,400 dosage units of alprazolam 1mg and 573,200 dosage units of alprazolam 2mg — totaling nearly 856,000 benzodiazepine units — unaccounted for between Liberty's purchase invoices and PDMP reports, along with approximately 3,354 bottles of promethazine with codeine similarly unaccounted for. All four pharmacies failed to maintain accurate records of their purchasing and dispensing of controlled substances.
Acting DEA Administrator Derek Maltz signed the Decision and Order on April 10, 2025. The DEA revoked all four DEA Certificates of Registration and denied any pending renewal or modification applications, as well as any pending applications for additional registration in Pennsylvania. The order became effective May 27, 2025.
How Crucible Prevents This
All four pharmacies simultaneously failed to maintain accurate purchasing and dispensing records. Liberty Pharmacy's 100% variance between invoices and PDMP data — representing hundreds of thousands of benzodiazepine and codeine units — is the kind of total recordkeeping breakdown that Crucible's PDMP reconciliation controls, which automatically compare dispensed units to purchase orders, would have detected at the end of every reporting period.
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