Published: October 29, 2009 08:50 am      

Details about pill pipeline roundup coming today

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

As of about 8 p.m. Wednesday, none of the Tri-County detention centers appeared to be hosting prisoners taken in an Eastern Kentucky roundup of alleged drug dealers earlier in the day.

Details of the roundup will be given during a 2:30 p.m. press conference in Lexington, said Kentucky State Police information officer Lt. David Jude from his Frankfort office.

The sweep was seeking people who bring pills from Florida to criminally distribute them in the area.

According to KSP Capt. Kevin Payne, of the Eastern Kentucky drug-enforcement unit, every state police post in the area was participating in the roundup.

In the London post area, some 50 police officers set out from Mount Vernon around 8 a.m. Wednesday with 25 arrest warrants.

A spokesperson for the Pikeville post, which serves Pike, Floyd, Magoffin, Johnson and Martin counties, reportedly said officers in that area sought 75 to 100 alleged pill pushers.

In the days just before the roundup, about ten arrests had already been made by Powell County deputies, said Sheriff Danny Rogers.

At the regional jail in Lee County, 19 people, mostly from Wolfe County, had been lodged.

The pills, which are illegally sold in the state, are allegedly purchased outside the state, not only in Florida, but Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system (KASPER) tracks the dispensing of drugs, and those who wish to sell the pills often buy them in other states to avoid tracking.

Florida is scheduled to install a tracking system, but it is not yet in operation, so it is a particular destination for those who wish to sell the pills.

Drug dealers sometimes provide money for addicts to go to Florida and buy the pills at clinics or doctors’ offices. They keep some for themselves and provide the dealers with the rest.