Posted on 08/06/2008 3:01:33 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Fifty-six government employees -- including a police officer, a felony court clerk, two corrections officers and 27 school bus drivers and attendants -- were arrested in a scam that used health insurance information to fraudulently obtain prescriptions for the painkiller OxyContin, authorities said Wednesday.
Sixty-two people were arrested in total and all face charges including racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and grand theft, according to the Miami-Dade state attorney's office.
Authorities estimate 130 medically unnecessary prescriptions for OxyContin -- more than 12,000 tablets -- were presented to pharmacies. The drugs have an estimated street value of $400,000, prosecutors said.
OxyContin is a popular painkiller, delivering an instant "high" when it is crushed or dissolved and ingested.
The scam began in January 2003, when six "recruiters" enlisted a group of people, most of them employees of local government, to participate in the ring, according to prosecutors.
Those employees provided their health insurance identification information, and with that information they obtained unnecessary prescriptions for OxyContin from another codefendant, who was a physician, authorities said.
The defendants filled those prescriptions at pharmacies and sold the pills for cash to another codefendant, authorities said.
In addition, prosecutors said, the defendants submitted claims to their insurance companies for reimbursement for the OxyContin prescriptions.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
People pay $30 a tablet???? Wow, would have guessed $5.
Damn. Just, Damn.
I hate to see this kind of abuse. Husband uses this to control his pain and keep him walking upright. Two spinal fusions within four years have left him in some serious pain, and he couldn’t make it through without this drug. He is VERY careful with this med, as he knows its addictive nature.
It has been a lifesaver for both of us, as he’s still able to be a functional tax-paying member of society due to the generic version of this drug.
Based on my experience aroung the country, the remainder would be DMV employees.
Rush has got to be laughing his a** off
That’s the first thing I thought of.
Me too i did not have the ca hones to post it
they need to start investigating government officials in Volusia county and its various municipalities...I highly recommend the city of Daytona Beach as a good place to start...
Good. Clean up government too by netting these people.
School bus drivers involved in a Miami drug ring? Sounds like a movie plot. All that’s missing are the mercs and a huge Seminole.
Go get ‘em Rush.
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