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White-collar crime is a fuzzily defined concept yet there are subcategories of it which seem to be more aligned with the definition since its conceptual introduction by Edwin Sutherland in 1939. White-collar crime is organized committed done by someone who abuses the power and influence that comes with their occupation to break the law for a profit. This type of crime’s effects are not visible to the naked-eye due to it’s non-violent nature and it being performed during the duties of an occupation, such as an investment banker, doctor, accountant, corporate executives, amongst other positions. Despite Sutherland’s high regard for the integrity of doctors and physicians, those featured in the documentary film, “The Opioids, Inc.” by Frontline, the featured pharmaceutical company founded by John Kapoor, a doctor, who is the epitome of white-collar criminal in terms of health insurance, and medical fraud.

John Kapoor was a chemist who became an investor upon the death of his wife which lead to him seeking to make a positive impact on the world through entrepreneurship—saving people from their sickness, but he became consumed by greed, which lured him and his staff into a lifestyle of white-collar crime all based on his greed-rooted goals; Ultimately using others as means to an end due to a maliciously warped perspective regarding the risks that an entrepreneur should take in their endeavors.

A researcher who was involved in the organized crime operations of Insys fraudulently published research (Academic white-collar crime), recommending Subsys (Insys’s pain relief pharmaceutical product) to investors in 2014 and received a kickback for doing so. The recommendation to investors resulted in Subsys gaining credibility, acceptance, and promotion as a safe and effective drug to treat pain. This caused Insys’s customers and prospects to believe published falsehoods regarding life altering medications.

The former sales employees of Insys who were interviewed stated that the concern was not the patient at all but the drugs, so they did whatever they could to make the sale without remorse. The sales team was headed by Alec Burlakoff, who stated that he specifically searched for sales personnel without sales experience, would act without a conscience, and had the killer instinct—the likes of a former firefighter; in addition to the likes of a former exotic dancer, Sunrise Lee, who he granted the position of Regional Sales Manager. Although they lacked the training, they were fit to commit fraudulent acts as instructed to by Insys. A prime example is Sunrise Lee, who coerced a doctor to forge signatures of other doctors on documents to be used by Insys.

Although Subsys was specifically recommended to treat breakthrough cancer patients, it was indiscriminately prescribed to patients who didn’t qualify. When background checks were conducted on doctors who were distributing prescriptions and they were determined to be “pill mills”— healthcare practitioners who frivolously write prescriptions to patients who didn’t really need them and profiting from it. Furthermore, the sales team personnel bribed doctors to prescribe higher doses of Subsys, evoked by Insys rewarding the sales team with higher cash prize incentives based on the higher doses they get the doctors to prescribe to patients, and even encouraged sexual relationships between staff and medical clientele to build and maintain relationships for more prescriptions to be written and filled.

Insys’s agenda was to erroneously advise how much Subsys patients should be dosing, which ranged from 100 micrograms, to the highest, 1600 micrograms—that which would generate $60,000 per month. Subsys is fentanyl— stronger and more addictive than morphine. Insys created its own dedicated department which corresponded with insurance companies with the sole purpose of health insurance fraud—defrauding them with bogus claims such as lying about the claimant’s condition to get the sale through underwriting, raising the product approval rate from 40% to 100%, due to John Kapoor deeming anything under 100% to be outrageous and unacceptable. This fraud caused countless problems for patients because they were consuming medication erroneously by the intention and direction of Kapoor. A pain doctor was arrested for providing a patient with Subsys canisters which were used by other patients. There was a similar case to this, “The doctor also reused disposable catheters in a diagnostic study he was conducting.”(Payne)

In the end, “The Opioids, Inc” proved to be an epitomized white-collar crime case. The film involved granting positions of power to people without experience or credentials such as management positions to an exotic dancer and firefighter. The crime was organized by an individual with economic, financial, and political power stemming from being a doctor and his investment endeavors as an entrepreneur which led to the ease and relative impunity in the commission of unusual and non-violent crimes—Kapoor was only sentenced to 5 years in prison for ruining lives and breaking a large quantity of laws. This scandal was in a national scope, preying on the sick then leaving many victims of the crimes whose lives were also negatively affected by the drugs that they administered in the belief that those providing healthcare were acting according to their fiduciary capacities.