Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Cracks Down on 'Pain Pill Epidemic'

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced Feb. 3 its three-month undercover crackdown on illegal pain pill mills has resulted in 88 arrest warrants with scores of arrests underway.

"As of 1 p.m. today (Feb. 3) we have arrested 45 people (over) the past two days," sheriff's spokesperson Cristal Bermudez said in an afternoon update. "Ten others were arrested prior to the round-up that began (Feb. 2)."

(Note: The names of the arrested, and their charges, appear in a file uploaded with this report.)

The arrest of individuals charged with buying, selling and distributing pain pills illegally “should send a strong message, 'If you're going to do these crimes in Hillsborough County you're going to get caught," said Col. Albert Frost in a video produced by the sheriff’s office.

Charges range from from trafficking in controlled substances to doctor shopping and the suspects are reported to range in age from 20 to 73.

Launched in November, “Operation Pain Reliever” had undercover sheriff’s detectives buying prescription pills and tracking fake prescriptions and “doctor-shopping” individuals. The aim was to “reduce the number of fatal overdoses occurring in the Tampa Bay area.”

“We need to get some laws passed that will eliminate this, make it stricter on the doctors and the pill clinics to operate,” Frost said in the video.

Moreover, he noted, “detectives will continue to identify and shut down these illegal pain clinics down and through their efforts hope to reduce this pain pill epidemic we have in Hillsborough County.”