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Broward Pharmacy Tech Helps Nab Illegal Pill Seekers

POMPANO BEACH (CBS4) - Aline Leca is a pharmacy technician with an investigator's mind.

During one week in early July, Leca says she turned in three customers to the Broward Sheriff's Office at the North Broward Pharmacy for trying to get their hands on powerful prescription drugs through fraudulent means.

Surveillance cameras from the pharmacy captured video of officers taking down one suspect.

In a separate case, according to a search warrant, Leca's tip led to the arrest of Noel Sinclair on charges of doctor shopping and trafficking in Oxycodone on July 5.

Leca used a drug monitoring program -- similar to one that will be implemented by the state on September  1st -- to discover that Sinclair had filled a prescription for Oxycodone 12 days earlier at a different pharmacy. After BSO investigators arrested Sinclair, they found 348 Oxycodone pills in his car and more than $10-thousand dollars cash.

The report says Sinclair "admitted to doctor shopping to obtain large amounts of Oxycodone."

"I'm happy," Leca told CBS 4's Carey Codd. "I put someone...that's not going to be doing trafficking out there anymore."

Leca said the people she believes are doctor shopping -- or using other fraudulent means to try and obtain prescription drugs like using phony prescriptions -- play dumb when she questions them.

"They still lie right to your face," she said. "They make an excuse, (saying) 'Oh, I didn't know.' It's all over the news."

Leca showed us the database the pharmacy uses to voluntarily perform a safety check on each customer. The database shows how recently a person got a prescription filled or tried to have one filled. If it's within 30 days, it raises a red flag.

The goal of the state Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) is to allow doctors and pharmacy's to communicate and make sure patients are not visiting multiple doctors to get drugs illegally.

Leca believes it will make a difference.

"I didn't want to have my daughters growing in the world with all kinds of drugs out there," she said. "If I can eliminate it as much as I can of Oxycodone out there, I will."

Law enforcement sources say until the state PDMP is in place they won't know what difference it will make. Investigators hope the program reduces the illegal sale of prescription drugs, cuts down on the amount of people addicted to prescription drugs and stops people from out of state from using I-95 as the Oxycontin Express.

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