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Agents Raid Florida Clinics in Drug Crackdown
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: February 23, 2011
MIAMI — Drug Enforcement Administration agents and other law enforcement officials on Wednesday raided six South Florida pain clinics accused of illegally dispensing potent prescription drugs across the United States. Twenty-two people, including five doctors, were arrested on state and federal drug trafficking charges.
The one-year undercover inquiry, dubbed Operation Pill Nation, focused on storefront clinics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties that the authorities say have become a national clearinghouse for illegal prescription drugs and highly addictive painkillers like oxycodone. Investigators described the operation as the federal government’s most aggressive effort to shut down the so-called pill mills they say have contributed to sharp increases in overdoses and addiction.
South Florida has long been a place where prescription drugs could be obtained easily and cheaply. In recent years, such pill mills have flourished in strip malls from Miami to Palm Beach Gardens, with the highest concentration of rogue clinics in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, officials said.
“This is a completely profit-driven operation that has no medical regard for anyone,” Mark R. Trouville, the special agent in charge of the Miami field office for the D.E.A., said in an interview. “These clinics have nothing to do with the welfare of the community.”
Mr. Trouville said that since the operation began a year ago, a task force had taken action against 66 doctors at 83 locations and seized more than $25 million worth of property.
Wednesday’s raids came several weeks after Gov. Rick Scott announced his intention to halt a planned state database for tracking the sale of prescription drugs. Mr. Scott, a Republican, has said the database is an invasion of privacy and a waste of money, drawing criticism in Florida, even from some fellow Republicans, and from two Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
More than 20,000 people a year die of prescription drug overdoses, including an estimated seven a day in Florida, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among those arrested on Wednesday was Dr. Zvi Perper, who owns Delray Pain Management in Delray Beach. Dr. Perper, whose father is Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner, had no comment as he was led away in handcuffs and beige medical scrubs.
The authorities said they seized more than $2.5 million worth of homes, property, luxury cars and boats belonging to doctors and clinic owners on Wednesday.
In the last year, undercover agents, posing as patients without legitimate medical ailments, were able to easily obtain powerful narcotics like oxycodone and hydrodone, law enforcement officials said.
Mr. Trouville said addicts, driving cars with out-of-state plates, camp out most nights and wait for clinics to open at 10 a.m. “When we go into these clinics, there is a gun in there,” he said. “How many times have you gone into your doctor’s office and there’s an armed guard outside? They don’t take insurance. This is a facade that these clinics provide a service to the community."
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