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Feds bust another ring of accused painkiller peddlers in Miami-Dade, Broward
Posted on Wednesday, 10.12.11
A doctor, a pharmacist and two pain clinic operators were among 24 people indicted on charges of defrauding Medicare while distributing oxycodone and oxymorphone across Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
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BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
South Florida’s painkiller peddlers have taken a sharp turn into the Medicare rackets, authorities say.
On Wednesday, federal agents broke up another major ring of alleged prescription drug peddlers -- including a doctor, a pharmacist and two clinic owners -- in a takedown across Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
But this bust was different. A total of 24 healthcare providers and others were indicted on charges of conspiring to distribute oxycodone and oxymorphone and to defraud the federal Medicare insurance program -- a new development in the typically cash-only painkiller schemes.
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Health and Human Services, assisted by local police, arrested all but three of the defendants, who remain at large, authorities said.
The network’s alleged total take: $40 million.
“Today, we have focused our efforts on those pharmacies who are churning out pills that are fraudulently prescribed at area pain clinics,” U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said in a statement. “We will continue to tackle South Florida’s pill mill epidemic from all angles and at all levels to eradicate these drug-dealing organizations.”
According to the indictment, Gerardo Gomez and Juan De Dios Gomez operated five pain clinics in Miami, Hialeah and Plantation that were fronts for fraud. One of their employees, Danay C. Manso, was also charged.
They’re accused of conspiring with physician Frank J. Ballesteros, who wrote prescriptions, to distribute oxycodone and oxymorphone to beneficiaries of Medicare and other prescription-drug insurance plans. The beneficiary patients were in cahoots with the clinics, authorities said.
The beneficiaries filled their prescriptions at four Robert’s Drug Store pharmacies in Miami operated by Aiman Izzedin Aryan and one Pharmalife Pharmacy in Plantation owned by Emerson Carmona, the indictment said. Once the prescriptions were filled, Aryan and Carmona billed Medicare and other insurers for the costs, knowing that the drugs were medically unnecessary and being resold by the beneficiaries.
According to the indictment, 10 ring members recruited the beneficiaries to visit the Gomezes’ pain clinics and Dr. Ballesteros. State records show the 57-year-old Miami physician’s license had been previously suspended in the 1990s, but details were unavailable late Wednesday.
The recruiters often transported the beneficiaries to the pain clinics to obtain the prescriptions and to the pharmacies where they were filled.
The latest roundup follows an even bigger crackdown in August in the war on prescription drug abuse in Florida. Then, investigators targeted pill mills as organized-crime enterprises -- and corrupt doctors as murderers – for the first time.
That case charged 32 people under racketeering statutes for their involvement in South Florida-based pill mills that authorities said doled out 20 million oxycodone pills and made more than $40 million in profits from illegal sales of controlled substances.
Operation Oxy Alley targeted owners, 13 doctors and operators of the nation’s four largest pain clinics -- all in Broward and Palm Beach counties -- as well as two pharmacies, one pharmaceutical supplier and one internet-based steroid business.
The indictment brought Florida’s prescription medication abuse problem -- described by investigators as a homegrown drug epidemic -- into sharp focus.
In August, the state’s Medical Examiners Commission released its annual report showing deaths caused by prescription drugs in 2010 were up by about 8 percent. Oxycodone was the cause of death for 2,710 people, about a 28 percent increase since 2009. About 85 percent of all oxycodone sold comes from Florida.
In February, the DEA led raids on more than a dozen clinics, resulting in 20 arrests -- including five doctors -- from Miami to West Palm Beach.
Miami Herald staff writer Scott Hiaasen contributed to this story.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/12/2451030/feds-bust-another-ring-of-accused.html Document | Read the indictment 
Thanks Mr Amjad
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