Thousands of prescriptions for addictive pain-killers have been distributed illegally on the black market by a well-respected doctor, UK MailOnline reported.
Robert Terdiman, a highly-qualified consultant, is said to have pocketed $12 million in return for writing nearly 19,000 prescriptions for oxycodone pills - a strong morphine-like pain killer - for fake patients, which a gang then sold on to addicts.
One among two dozen suspects arrested over the drug ring which operated out of an Astramed clinic in the Bronx, N.Y., the 68-year-old had run his own successful practice until he was sued for medical malpractice.
According to UK MailOnline, prosecutors claim fake patients would visit the Astramed clinic where staff members, including Terdiman, would issue them with prescriptions for oxycodone in return for a fee of between $200 and $300 a time.
A total of 31,500 medically unnecessary prescriptions, approximately 5.5 million oxycodone pills worth $550 million, were issued by the clinic over the course of three years.
In just 20 months, Terdiman is said to have written 18,700 of the prescriptions for oxycodone - issuing approximately three million pills - for more than 4,000 "patients" from June 2012, UK MailOnline reported.
Filled at pharmacies and drug dealers, the prescriptions were then resold on the streets in New York and across America.
"The world of prescription drug trafficking is looking more and more like the world of old-school trafficking in narcotics like heroin, cocaine and crack," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "The traffickers were supplied with prescriptions by corrupt doctors and clinic employees, dispensed to lower-level 'pretend' patients so that massive quantities of oxycodone could be distributed wherever the most money could be made, often in communities hundreds of miles away."
He added, "This is poison by prescription, and the volume and money allegedly involved would make hardened illegal drug traffickers envious."
New York City Special Narcotic Prosecutor Bridget Brennan told CBS New York, "He was far and away the most prolific prescription writer that we have seen."
According to UK MailOnline, Terdiman, who graduated from NYU School of Medicine in 1971, had been a very successful doctor with his own thriving practice until he was sued for medical malpractice in 2004.
He is understood to have separated from his wife shortly afterwards and lost the sprawling $1.2 million home he shared with his family, according to New York Daily News.
Until he began working at Astramed in June 2012, Terdiman struggled to rebuild his career and was left out of work for five years, UK MailOnline reported.
"After hardly ever writing a prescription for oxycodone throughout his time as a doctor, Terdiman issued more than three million of the pills to his 'patients' in the space of 20 months," UK MailOnline reported. "By the time of his arrest, he was living in the rundown Tuckahoe Motor Inn in Yonkers, New York, with a gun and bullets hidden inside his TV."
Terdiman is being held without bail and is due back in court on Feb 19, UK MailOnline reported.
