Feds raid three Florida 'pill mills'

MIAMI, March 8 (UPI) -- Three Florida clinics suspected of illegally distributing millions of prescription pain pills were raided and charged with being "pill mills," authorities said.

A criminal investigation discovered the clinics had five primary physicians working full time who administered more than 2 million narcotic oxycodone pills last year, ABC News reported Monday.

The five doctors ranked in the top 20 purchasers of oxycodone and were each paid anywhere from $860,000 to $1.2 million last year, court documents indicate. Investigators allege the more patients the doctors saw, the more they were paid.

The documents allege people from states like Kentucky, Ohio and South Carolina came to pay "$5 for a pill and take the pills back to their home state and sell them for $80 a pill," ABC News said.

Authorities said they would continue to investigate to halt the operation of "pill mills."

"This is an excellent start," Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said of the raids. "We can't keep letting our young people die on prescription medication overdoses and have this type of system that dispenses the pills randomly without any controls."