Sand Springs Men Arrested In Statewide Prescription Drug Ring Bust

NewsOn6.com

SAND SPRINGS, Oklahoma -- Two Sand Springs men were arrested Thursday morning for illegally obtaining prescription drugs across the state of Oklahoma, the Tulsa County Sheriff's office said.

Deputies called the bust a "large scale drug distribution network."

Rueben Castillo, Jr, 22, and Joshua Clark, 22, were arrested and booked into the Tulsa County jail on 60 counts each of obtaining or attempting to obtain a controlled drug by forged prescription.

According to a news release from the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, task force agents seized vehicles, drugs, thousands of dollars in cash and a large amount of pills and forged prescriptions from a home in the 3300 block of Springtree Lane in Sand Springs Thursday morning.

The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office said agents began investigating Castillo in April. Deputies said individuals who had been recruited were using prescriptions forged from two Tulsa physicians and filling them up at pharmacies in the Tulsa area, as well as Bethany, Enid and Woodward.

Deputies said the operation likely began last summer and that individuals obtained and sold about 10,000 pills, mostly painkillers and psychotropic drugs, a month. According to the TCSO, agents said about $250,000 worth of pills were sold in the last month alone.

In 2009, Rueben Castillo pled guilty to three drug related counts and received a deferred sentence. In 2010, Joshua Clark pled guilty in 3 different cases and also received a deferred sentence.

Castillo and Clark are both out on bond.

More arrests and charges are expected as the investigation unfolds.