ATLANTA — Federal agents said they busted a local pill mill operation where a doctor and two pharmacists were selling drugs to drug dealers and people with drug addiction for personal profit.
Investigators say the licensed pharmacists were selling drugs out of a store.
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The pharmacy is shut down now, but according to a federal indictment, the pharmacists were getting prescriptions from a doctor in southwest Atlanta and they were all allegedly conspiring to sell opiates to drug dealers and people with drug addiction.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes knocked on a door on Greenwich Street in southwest Atlanta where federal agents said Dr. Anthony Mills was living.
They say he was a licensed gynecologist who was illegally selling drugs out of his home for cash.
Fernandes spoke to Corey Blowe, a neighbor who remembers when police raided the house.
“It was a catastrophe that morning,” Blowe said. “It was like military-type federal agents and what not. They came and you just heard the sirens blaring and they pulled up right there with their big tanker truck.”
Police said Mills was also writing several illegal prescriptions for drugs like Percocet, morphine and oxycodone, and two pharmacists were filling those prescriptions out of two different pharmacies, one in Lithonia on Covington Highway and another in Conyers on Hwy. 20.
The pharmacists now facing federal charges are Raphael Ogunsusi and Moses Kirigwi.
Police indicted 10 other people they’re calling “drug sponsors.” They’re accused of distributing the illegal drugs into the community.
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Neighbors in the doctor’s community had a feeling he was involved in something illegal because there were always cars coming to his house and clogging up traffic on the side street.
“My mom used to like to come out on the porch and sit a lot. She was like, ‘they’re doing something over there,’ and I’m like, ‘don’t get in nobody’s business,’ you know. But that’s exactly what was going on,” Blowe said.
There was no answer at the doctor’s door. Neighbors said he moved out after the raid. One attorney is representing many of these suspects. Fernandes reached out Monday but has not heard back.
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The opioid epidemic is a public health crisis the U.S. has faced now for decades. According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 136 people die every day from an opioid overdose. From 1999 to 2019, nearly half a million people died.
To try to combat the issue, the CDC is funding surveillance and prevention efforts in health departments across 47 states, including Georgia.
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