Tulsa man sentenced to five years for selling drug to make meth

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A federal judge has sentenced a Tulsa man to five years in prison for selling pseudoephedrine with the knowledge that the drug would be used in methamphetamine production.

U.S. District Judge Sven Erik Holmes also ordered MD Hanif Bhuiyan to pay a $91,000 fine, an approximation of the income Bhuiyan derived from illegal sales of the pills in 1999 while he was a convenience store owner.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert T. Raley and Missouri officials say Bhuiyan is suspected of being the primary supplier of pseudoephedrine to a Missouri man who has been linked to four meth labs.

Bhuiyan, 29, pleaded guilty June 21. He stated then that he sold 70,000 pseudoephedrine tablets to two men in November 1999 and then sold seven cases of the pills during separate transactions on Jan.

20. The cases equal 64,840 pills.

Bhuiyan, identified in a Feb. 4 federal indictment as "The Pill Man," admitted that he knew the pills would be used for methamphetamine.

Undercover officers arrested him last Jan. 20 after he made two pseudoephedrine sales in Creek County.

Pseudoephedrine is not an illegal substance and is in many over-the-counter medications. But its deliberate use or distribution for methamphetamine production is illegal.