Feds Pry Open Opioid ​“Dark Web”

First investigators came across a package of 101 oxycontin pills sent to a New Haven doctor via a ​“dark web narcotics distribution organization.” Then came a call from Walgreens — and the feds were closing on the doctor, a suspected illicit opioid dealer.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that a grand jury has now indicted the 37-year-old medical resident on 35 counts of distribution of narcotics without a legitimate medical purpose — 35 counts to match 35 alleged incidents of writing prescriptions for oxycodone ​“for non-legitimate medical purposes outside the scope of her professional practice in the name of at least five individuals.”

The woman worked as a medical resident in Yale New Haven Hospital’s Emergency Department from July 2017 through this June. The hospital cooperated with the the federal investigation and ended her employment. The woman, who now lives in North Carolina, has not yet entered a plea; a public defender is representing her. (“No comment,” the public defender, Kelly M. Barrett, said when asked Wednesday how her client plans to plead.)

An affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Daniel Curtin details how investigators caught up with the woman — and illustrates one alleged way that people are obtaining highly addictive prescription drugs during this wave of widespread and often deadly opiate abuse.

(Click here to read the affidavit. Click here to read the indictment.)

The woman’s identity came across Curtin’s radar in March 2, 2018 while he was looking into the narc ​“dark web,” the agent wrote in the affidavit. He learned that ​“law enforcement intercepted a package” addressed tot he woman with 101 oxycodone hydrochloride pills inside. The ​“dark web” generally refers to pats of the internet accessible only with special software, where people can conduct transactions anonymously and without a trace.

The woman subsequently ​“claimed that she did not order these pills,” according to Curtin’s affidavit.

However, agents determined that the woman received ​“approximately” ten such packages from ​“what is believed to be a dark web narcotics distribution organization” between November 2017 and March 2018.

Then came a call from the Walgreens Pharmacy at 1471 Whalley Ave.

It turned out that a Walgreens customer had received a text notification telling her to pick up an oxycodone prescription in her name — one she hadn’t been prescribed. ​“Diagnosis code: Motorcycle Crash,” read the prescriber’s comments. The customer had not been riding a motorcycle. The customer hadn’t seen the Yale medical resident.

It turned out a friend of hers had picked up the prescription. The Yale New Haven medical resident had written the prescription.

Walgreen’s contacted the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). An agent spoke to the customer, who said the friend told her she would pay the doctor to write the prescriptions, and she ​“would also give some of the pills to the doctor.” The friend was using other people’s identities as well in the scheme.

Then, according to the affidavit, the medical resident contacted the customer to ask her ​“to fabricate a story about the prescription.” The doctor warned the customer that ​“she was now a perpetrator in the fraudulent prescription scheme.”

Investigators then contacted Yale New Haven, and learned that the doctor was taking advantage of a glitch in a mobile system for prescriptions.

“YNHH discovered that the system erroneously allowed her to write prescriptions for ​‘closed’ encounters without the usual requisite attending physician approval. YNHH determined that [the doctor] capitalized on this apparent loophole in the system, using patients whose encounters were ​‘closed’ to write multiple fraudulent oxycodone prescriptions,” FBI Agent Curtin wrote in the affidavit. Yale New Haven gave the feds the names of eight patient names it believed the doctor was using in the scheme; agents determined that the doctor never obtained approval from a supervising physician to write the prescriptions.

Finally, the woman received another package on July 16, 2019,with ten fentanyl pills. Some nine days later the woman ​“admitted” to agents that she ordered that package and 12 others ​“from the dark web.”

Yale New Haven Hospital issued the following statement about the doctor’s arrest: ​“We are aware that a former Yale New Haven Hospital resident was recently indicted and we are fully cooperating with the local authorities. As soon as we became aware of the allegations, the resident was placed on administrative leave and she is no longer affiliated with the Hospital. We have reviewed and addressed the circumstances that allowed this issue to occur.”