Polk County Sheriff’s and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had been watching the Key Medical Clinic in Winter Haven since last summer.
Yesterday they swooped in and arrested eight people, but they say the pain pill mill involves hundreds.
Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news conference Wednesday that the clinic’s owner, Patricia Osborn, had been illegally forging prescriptions for drugs like the highly addictive Oxycodone.
Judd explained the criminals system. They would take the paper prescriptions, recruit hundreds of people and have them fan out to pharmacies across central Florida to get the fraudulent prescriptions filled.
The would then bring the pills back to the clinic, where buyers then pick up pill in just minutes.
He said during the investigation, both FDLE and detectives saw “patients” walk in and walk out, staying just two to seven minutes.
Judd also said that this was a big money operation.
In the span of just 10 months, he estimated the ring brought in between seven and nine million dollars.
Sheriff Judd also said that the investigation is not over.
He said he has names and is going after them.
