TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The following information was released by the office of the Florida Attorney General:
Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that the ringleader of a Miami pill mill operation was convicted on numerous counts of selling adulterated prescription medication. Abel Rodriguez oversaw the operation that had been illegally filling more than $10 million worth of Internet drug orders for approximately one year. Rodriguez was prosecuted by the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution.
Rodriguez and several co-conspirators filled nationwide orders for powerful painkillers and other medications without prescriptions or pharmacists. The vast majority of the drug distributions were for hydrocodone, but also included alprazolam, phentermine and other prescription drugs. Rodriguez, 53, was arrested in July 2005 after a nine-month investigation by the Miami-area Drug Diversion Response Team which included the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and Office of Statewide Prosecution, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state Department of Health.
According to authorities, the group operated at several locations throughout Miami-Dade County, including Nuria's La Familia Pharmacy, JR Pharmacy, KandN Group and International Latin Medical Corp., to order and receive large wholesale shipments of various medications. Investigators found no valid prescriptions for filled Internet orders; in some instances, the only requirement imposed on the person requesting the pills was completion of an Internet questionnaire.
The investigation revealed that once the medications were received at the various pharmacies, they would be shipped to other locations throughout South Florida where the pills would be counted, packaged, labeled and prepared for distribution. The investigation also revealed that several of the pharmacies never opened for legitimate business and were only being used as "fronts" or "shell" businesses to order the medications.
Rodriguez was convicted of dispensing pharmaceuticals without a pharmacist's license and dealing in adulterated or misbranded pharmaceuticals. He is scheduled to appear before Judge Julio Jimenez tomorrow morning in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for a bond hearing prior to his March sentencing date.
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