WASHINGTON D.C. — A new program announced at the first National Opioid Summit in Washington D.C. is focused to take further steps to help combat the opioid crisis in Appalachia.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division rolled out the formation of the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force, a joint law enforcement effort to crack down on the crisis in five states, including West Virginia.
“Appalachia has been hard hit,” Sessions said at the summit. “Some of the first pill Mills in America started in southern Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. To this day they continue to suffer tragically high rates of addiction overdose and death.”
The strike force will be composed of 12 additional opioid fraud prosecutors, each with their own team of federal law enforcement agents. In a release from the Department of Justice, the mission of the APRO strike force is to identify and investigate health care fraud schemes in the Appalachian region and surrounding areas and to effectively and efficiently prosecute medical professionals and others involved in the illegal prescription and distribution of opioids.
“They will help us find doctors, pharmacists, professionals of all kinds who are flooding our streets with drugs,” Sessions said. “And put them behind bars. We cannot allow this to continue. We will be relentless. We will continue to get smarter and better at our work. And these new steps are going to build on the successes we have already had as an administration and as a department.”
Many law enforcement officials and U.S. attorneys from states in this strike force joined Benczkowski in the announcement, including U.S. Attorney William J. Powell for the Northern District of West Virginia and U.S. Attorney Michael B. Stewart for the Southern District of West Virginia.
In the release it states the APRO strike force will bring expertise of the Health Care Fraud Unit in the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for nine federal districts in five states, as well as law enforcement partners at the FBI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
“We are going to keep up the pace,” Sessions said. “It will be a good way for us to consolidate and come together to determine where we are now and what we have accomplished and what we will need to do in the future. The stakes of never been higher. We have never seen a challenge we have had today like we are seeing today. Our determination has never been higher.”
The APRO strike force was one of a couple announcements made by Sessions and the DOJ at the summit. Sessions noted that they will be headed to Kentucky on Friday to meet with prosecutors and investigations about the strike force.
This announcement comes a day after President Trump signed the legislation into law dealing with the opioid epidemic. The STOP Act, part of the legislation, puts advanced screening with new electronic data collections on international packages to be shipped into the country through the U.S. Postal Service.
“While the opioid epidemic continues to inflict untold pain and suffering on people across the country, the devastation in the Appalachian region and adjacent areas has been particularly staggering,” Benczkowski said in the release of the announcement of the strike force.
“It is all the more reprehensible when unscrupulous physicians and pharmacies contribute to the epidemic by illegally supplying dangerous prescription painkillers. Working with our partners in U.S. Attorney’s Offices and law enforcement, the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force will combat illegal prescription opioids and health care fraud by holding accountable corrupt medical professionals who seek to profit off the crisis of opioid addiction.”
By Jake Flatley
