UPDATE 1-U.S. charges 58 in Texas with healthcare fraud, illegal opioid distribution

U.S. prosecutors announced charges on Wednesday against 58 people accused of engaging in healthcare fraud schemes that centered on the illegal distribution of more than 6 million opioid pills across Texas.

Some 16 medical professionals, including six doctors and seven pharmacists, were charged in the schemes, which featured one pharmacy in Houston that illegally dispensed more than 760,000 pills from March 2018 to September 2019, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski told a news briefing in Dallas. "The data in our possession shines an inescapable light on those dirty doctors, clinic owners, pharmacists and others who may have long believed that they could perpetuate their fraud in the dark, behind closed doors," he said.

The opioid crisis has led to nearly 400,000 overdose deaths between 1999 and 2017, according to the latest U.S. data. About 218,000 of those deaths have been from prescription opioids, while the rest were from illicit opioids including heroin. The schemes in Texas also involved more than $158 million in fraudulent claims for compound creams and $23 million in tax evasion. Federal authorities have frozen $60 million in assets of the people accused, Benczkowski said.

"I hope today's action brings home a simple message for those that engage in these despicable frauds," he said. "You're not invisible."

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