Grocery store owner deported for drug sales

? The owner of a chain of Latino grocery stores in Kansas and Missouri is being deported after pleading guilty to selling misbranded medicines made in Mexico.

Samuel Morones-Perales, 38, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil and ordered to pay a forfeiture of $18,000, which represents the profits he made by selling the misbranded drugs at Latino Y Punto stores.

“Within 30 days, Samuel Morones-Perales must leave the United States,” U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren said in a release. “As a convicted felon, he is prohibited from returning to this country.”

Morones-Perales pleaded guilty to one count of introducing unapproved new drugs into interstate commerce, one count of misbranding by dispensing prescription drugs without prescription of a licensed practitioner and one count of receiving drugs that were misbranded because the labels were in Spanish, not English.