Feds Convict 46 Defendants in $18 Million Pill Mill Scheme

[TexasTowelie]

DALLAS -- Federal prosecutors have convicted 46 defendants of multiple conspiracy counts to dispense illicit drugs in an $18 million pill mill scheme the government named “Operation Wasted Daze.”

The defendants included two doctors, a nurse practitioner, and five pharmacists, along with 41 other co-conspirators who pleaded guilty before the trial. Dr. Caesar Mark Capistrano, arrested in the fall, was charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to dispense hydrocodone and possession to distribute hydrocodone or carisoprodol. He faces up to 100 years in federal prison, at 20 years per count.

He partnered with pharmacists Ethel Oyekunle-Bubu, Wilkinson Oloyede Thomas, Christopher Kalejaiye Ajayi, recruiter Brian Kincade, and recruit Alphonse Fisher, who were all convicted at trial. They also face 20 years in federal prison for each count of conspiracy.

The scheme is a familiar one. In these types of cases, physicians, recruiters, and pharmacies often conspire to pay fake patients to come in for some sort of fraudulent visit, where they are prescribed medicine. Physicians get paid by the recruiters for the prescriptions, which are often billed to Medicaid or Medicare. Then, when the fake patients fill the prescriptions, the recruiters sell the drugs on the street. Sometimes in these schemes, gift cards are used to recruit potential fake patients, and sometimes the patients are not homeless but members of the military or other community members.

Read more: https://www.dmagazine.com/healthcare-business/2021/04/feds-convict-46-defendants-in-18-million-pill-mill-scheme/
(Dallas Magazine)

[magicarpet]

1. Opium derivatives,... just the drugs that need to be kept off the street.

Too many addicted,... too many OD,.... too many deaths of younger ones.