State Attorney General Mike DeWine said that five search warrants and 25 arrest warrants were issued on Thursday in an investigation into alleged painkiller trafficking in central Ohio.
DeWine said that the 10-month investigation announced Thursday found numerous examples of people illegally selling prescription painkillers in their homes, businesses and on the streets of Circleville.
In a statement, DeWine said that 80 percent of the drugs involved in the raid were prescription pain medications such as OxyContin and Percocet, which were being sold out of businesses, homes and on the street, with a smaller amount of cocaine, heroin and marijuana.
Police said that they believed many of the pills were illegal because they were found loose and in unmarked prescription bottles, 10TV’s Daniele Elias reported.
DeWine said that most of the people arrested had ties to a man named Timothy Bailey, who also was arrested at his home on Thursday.
DeWine also said the he was disturbed by the number of families involved in the alleged trafficking.
“We picked up and arrested today one family, a father, mother and son,” DeWine said.
DeWine said that more than 50,000 prescription pain pills worth $1.4 million had been seized in the past year.
Stephanie Strausbaugh said that she worked next door to a Circleville tattoo shop that was raided on Thursday morning and was happy that police were cracking down.
“As a parent, it’s scary,” Strausbaugh said. “There was SWAT and then the K9 unit from the city police showed up.”
The attorney general has made a statewide crackdown on illegal prescription painkiller abuse a priority, including the hiring of a painkiller czar and devoting extra resources to the fight.
Drug overdoses fueled by painkiller addiction are now the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio, surpassing car accidents.
Circleville police said that they also thought the drug ring was connected to the slaying of Rodney Metcalfe months ago, Elias reported.
Two of the people arrested on Thursday had been indicted in the slaying of Metcalfe, who was found shot to death on the back porch of his home last October.
Those arrested were scheduled to be video arraigned in court on Friday.
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