Meet Chris Harris, a former call center professional in Kolkata, who is now earning thousands of dollars illegally selling drugs that the U.S. uses to execute criminals.
According to his résumé., Harris had a handful of jobs at call centers — staying for roughly a year at each place — before he became an execution drug dealer for the U.S.
Harris has sold thousands of vials of execution drugs illegally to four states in the U.S. that carry out the death penalty, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found.
Harris, who once worked at a duty-free pen shop at the Abu Dhabi International airport, has managed to convince Nebraska and other states to pay him thousands of dollars for drugs that are not approved by regulatory authorities in the U.S.
Death penalty states in the U.S. have faced a shortage of lethal injection drugs they use to execute prisoners after European drug companies and local pharmaceutical firms refused to supply the drugs on moral and ethical grounds.
These states have resorted to obtaining drugs from U.S. pharmacies that are not regulated by federal authorities, leading to several legal challenges against the death penalty. Some of the drugs have also proved to be problematic, causing botched executions.
Faced with a list of prisoners to execute and a growing shortage of execution drugs, states like Nebraska and South Dakota turned to Harris, who promised them not to worry about legal issues of importing these drugs from India to the U.S.
Nebraska most recently sent Harris a check for ₹ 3,519,733 ($54,400) for a "minimum order" of 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental.
Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show little effort by states to investigate Harris's qualifications or the legalities of importing drugs.
Each time they have purchased drugs from him, the federal government raised questions about their legality — the drugs have gone unused.
But states continue to fall for Harris's sales pitch, which typically follows this script: The legal issues are fixed this time, don't worry about it. Other states are buying it, too. You aren't the only one. You just need to make it a "minimum order" to make it worth the while. Payment in advance.
His company, Harris Pharma, claims to manufacture and distribute drugs from a facility in Salt Lake City, Kolkata. However, this "manufacturing" facility is actually a rented office which could not possibly accommodate a laboratory to make drugs.
The office is one of 61 standardized, ready-to-use work spaces available to rent by Regus — an international firm. Harris provides this address to the U.S. as his drug manufacturing firm. A Regus employee, however, said the office is not being used to make drugs.
Saurav Bose, a customer relations officer at the office rental company who has met Harris twice since he started working here a few months ago, said Harris did not manufacture drugs in this rented office.
"He comes only two to three times in a month," Bose told BuzzFeed News, adding that most of his communication with Harris was limited to email.
Bose, who described Harris as being "fickle" with his visits to the office, said he rarely had any clients or other people in the office.
Another company address that Harris provides to the U.S. is actually his apartment in Kasba, Kolkata, which he left more than two years ago without paying rent, his former landlord told BuzzFeed News.
Harris lived in the apartment with his second wife, Sanjukta Harris, but left the building in 2013 ago without paying seven months rent and electricity bills, his landlord, Abhijit Majumder, said.
Majumder said Harris told him he was going through "financial losses" and promised to find the money somehow.
"But on April 14 [2013] — I still remember the date — he suddenly handed over the keys to the caretaker and just left the building," said Majumder, who rents out two apartments in the building but does not reside there. He also claimed some items in the apartment were destroyed after Harris left.
Harris stopped answering Majumder's calls after he left the building and his mobile phone was later disabled, according to Majumder.
Majumdar said that he rented out the flat to Harris for "residential purposes only" and was unaware that Harris had registered it as an office. "He told me he was a computer professional dealing in software."
“He used to sit at home all day long. How did he manage to sell lethal injection drugs to the U.S.?" Pijush Kantibairag, Harris's old neighbor told BuzzFeed News.
Kantibairag said Harris told him he manufactured and sold "sexual feel drugs" on a website. Kayem Pharmaceuticals, for which Harris was a broker during this time, sells drugs to enhance male sexual performance.
Kantibairag said that Harris never seemed to have money to pay for rent, yet spent excessively: "Every day there was a new car outside the building."
While Kantibairag said he was shocked to read the news about Harris's $54,000 deal with Nebraska, he recalled that Harris had hinted about a business deal with the U.S. at a birthday party he hosted on the building's terrace for his wife.
Kantibairag said Harris bragged to his neighbors about getting a "big consignment" from the U.S.
According to Kantibairag, Harris told his guests that America needed lethal injection drugs for the death penalty and that he was manufacturing the drugs for them.
"He told us that if he gets the consignment his life will be made," Kantibiarag said.
"10 paise ki aukat hai, aur 2 lakh ki baat karta hai" — He is worth only 10 paise but he talked like he was worth 2 lakh rupees, Kantibairag said.