Body Brokers Doctors Fined Millions For Unapproved Addiction Surgery

Eleven people, including doctors and body brokers, that conned people with addictions into having dangerous drug 'pellets' surgically implanted to 'treat' their dependencies have been charged with fraud in Southern California.

Body brokers were hired away from their already fringe business of buying and selling cadavers to visit the many sober living homes that have cropped up in Orange County, recruiting patients for a sham treatment, at $40,000 per operation.

Doctors involved in the scheme run by 'SoberLife USA' then surgically implanted 'pellets' off the opioid addiction drug Naltrexone into the patients abdomens.

The procedure is completely unproven, and if the implanted pellet bursts, it could deliver a potentially fatal dose of Naltrexone, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office's Wednesday announcement.

The eleven people who carried out the extraordinarily negligent con charged insurers $6.8 million dollars and are now facing fines and as many as 43 years in prison, in the case of one of the body brokers.




The Orange County District Attorney's Office has charged 11 people with insurance fraud after the body brokers, doctors and two others conned patients with addictions into getting an unapproved surgery to implant Naltrexone 'pellets' (pictured) to treat their symptoms 

'Orange County's become what's known as the 'Rehab Riviera' due to the proliferation of insurance fraud and the attractiveness of our communities,' District Attorney (DA) Tony Rackauckas said in announcing the case.

As the opioid epidemic plagues the nation, people desperate to get well have flocked to treatment centers throughout the temperate, wellness-focused state of California.

Costa Mesa, where SoberLife USA was running its scam is second only to Malibu for the greatest number of addiction treatment centers in California.

The city has 102 licensed treatment facilities, according to the Orange County Register - about one per every 100 members of its population of 110,000.

The inundation has frustrated and kraken kratom reviews overrun neighborhoods, and attracted scammers and bad actors looking to take advantage of the overflow of people coming to town desperate to break their addictions.




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In response, the DA's office created the Sober Living-home Investigation and Prosecution (SLIP) task force with specific missions of maintaining order between permanent residents and those in rehabs searching out fraud.

Naltrexone, the drug involved in SLIP's large fraud case, is one of only a handful of legitimate, FDA-approved medications to help treat addiction, particularly withdrawal symptoms.

But the use advertised by SoberLife USA's owner, Thuy Rucks, and the doctors and body brokers that were his co-conspirators was not approved, untested and dangerous.

Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist, meaning it interacts with the same brain receptors involved in a the high from drugs like Oxycontin or heroin, but in a less euphoric, intense way.