Attorney General James’ Statement on Opioid Filings Detailing How Sackler Family Personally Ran Purdue Pharma and Directed Billions in Profits Into Personal Bank Accounts and Trusts

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today released the following statement after updated filings by the official committee of unsecured creditors in the multiple opioid lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family — currently in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York — revealed that the Sacklers personally directed and oversaw the illegal transfer of billions of dollars out of Purdue bank accounts and into personal accounts and trusts of Sackler family members, as well as that the family had direct control over all material decisions by Purdue:

“As America suffered hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths, millions of addictions, and countless left in financial ruin, the Sacklers profited billions and syphoned those funds out of their company and into their personal bank accounts and trusts. These filings finally display just some of the measures taken by and at the direction of individual members of the Sackler family to illegally shield their finances and protect billions in profit. The vast financial web this family built was meant to pull wool over our eyes and conceal their assets from both creditors and victims. As we have argued since we first filed our lawsuit nearly two years ago, we need full transparency into the Sackers’ total assets, as well as justice for opioid victims and our communities.”