One was a physician with a warehouse full of Ferraris, Mercedes-Benzes, and other fancy cars. Another was an Arkansas pharmacist who owned some 100 machine guns, rifles, and other firearms, some with silencers.
Still another was a physician who billed himself as a world-renown diabetologist on his practice website.
What they shared in common was the infamy of being swept up in what the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) calls its largest-ever crackdown on pain-pill trafficking. Launched in July 2014, the agency’s Operation Pilluted has yielded 282 arrests so far in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Forty-eight of these individuals were arrested Wednesday in raids conducted by more than 900 law enforcement agents on the local, state, and federal levels, according to the DEA.
The haul since last summer includes 22 physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists.
“The doctors and pharmacists arrested in Operation Pilluted are nothing more than drug traffickers who prey on the addiction of others while abandoning the Hippocratic Oath,” said DEA Special Agent-in-Charge Keith Brown in a news release.
Among those arrested Wednesday were Xiulu Ruan, MD, and John Couch, MD, who owned two pain-management clinics as well as a pharmacy in Mobile, Alabama. A federal grand injury indicted them last month on charges of conspiring to illegally distribute controlled substances and commit healthcare fraud. Federal prosecutors said that if the pair is found guilty they would have to forfeit an array of assets that includes Dr Ruan’s 13 “exotic” cars.
Another Alabama physician, Peter Lodewick, MD, pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally helping someone acquire oxycodone. Prosecutors said that Dr Lodewick, who specialized in diabetes care and antiaging medicine, wrote almost 400 prescriptions for controlled substances over a 2-year span to a group of “pill seekers” led by his housekeeper. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 4 years.
“Drugs, Money, and Guns”
Of the 282 arrests in Operation Pilluted since last summer, half have occurred in Arkansas. In the latest action, law enforcement agents Wednesday raided a clinic and pharmacy in Little Rock and arrested a physician, a physician assistant, and a pharmacist. That pill mill ran in a familiar pattern, according to prosecutors. It recruited fake patients — including the homeless — who would visit the clinic, receive a pain-pill prescription, get it filled, and then hand over the pills to recruiters in exchange for a small fee.
DEA spokesperson Rusty Payne said authorities found four guns at the clinic.
“When you have drugs, money, and guns intersecting, bad things happen,” Payne toldMedscape Medical News.
Guns figured in the case of another Arkansas healthcare professional charged with drug trafficking earlier this year as part of Operation Pilluted. Christopher Watson, a pharmacist in Perryville, sold tens of thousands of hydrocodone pills and other drugs after hours and forged prescriptions to cover his tracks as well as filled fraudulent prescriptions presented by others, prosecutors said. Watson also was charged with healthcare fraud and a firearms violation. According to the grand jury indictment, if Watson is found guilty, he must forfeit his collection of 100-odd guns, among other assets.
In addition to the arrests and indictments in Operation Pilluted, another 40 individuals voluntarily have surrendered their DEA registration to either prescribe or dispense drugs while two others have had their registration suspended.
Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi were among the top 10 states in the nation for opioid prescribing rates in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Alabama was number one with 142.9 prescriptions per 100 persons, 164% higher than the national average. Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi ranked eighth, seventh, and sixth, respectively.