These days, prescription pills are the premier drug among users. Brands like Xanax, Percocet and Adderall, prescribed by doctors, are abused daily by a diverse array of people. It seems to be common practice for pill pumpers on the street to send civilians to doctors to obtain prescriptions and get them filled at pharmacies for them to sell. Doctors have been busted for knowingly supplying false prescriptions to drug dealers. Dr. Rogelio Lucas, 77, and his wife, Lydia, 79 are the latest to go down for running such a ring.
The Lucases (originally from the Philippines) allegedly made millions off of supplying prescription pills to the black market out of their office. The Upper West Side couple had to move offices multiple times to accommodate the sea of pill seekers that came. According to the NY Post:
[Dr. Lucas] allegedly worked with several major drug rings to write more than 23,600 prescriptions for 3 million-plus tablets of the highly addictive painkiller oxycodone worth more than $77 million on the streets.
Between 45 and 50 people who served as “runners” for the drug rings would routinely pick up prescriptions each day, then get them filled at local pharmacies and turn over the pills to the dealers, authorities said.
Lydia, the office manager, maintained all of the records and collected the $120 fee Dr. Lucas charged to write prescriptions. It is alleged that the couple stashed close to $500,000 in bank accounts between June 2013 and July 2014. The feds seized $600,000 in cash from their home.
The Lucases also own homes in Hawaii and Florida. They are in the process of building a new one in their native Philippines. Those plans might have to be put on hold if the conspiracy and drug charges they were slapped with in Manhattan Criminal Court for slinging prescription pills.