COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA - Kentriss Thomas Rhodes, Ashley S. Fleming, and Antoine Sanders all residents of Chicago are headed to prison. The trio was sentenced in federal court for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

“We got calls from a couple different pharmacies that these fraudulent prescriptions were being passed for Oxycodone 30 milligram tablets and each one of them were 120,” said Lt. Tyler Kroenke with Nebraska State Patrol’s investigative services division.

For nine months, investigators say the trio hit dozens of pharmacies in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Missouri. According to investigators, Rhodes, Fleming and Sanders racked up more than 6,500 Oxycodone pills.

“They target individuals who are either homeless or vulnerable for a couple different reasons," Kroenke said. "They'll send those people into the pharmacy, and then if the cops come, they leave."

An investigation into Rhodes, Fleming and Sanders began in August 2018 when the Council Bluffs Police Department responded to a call from the Madison Avenue Hy-Vee on a report of a fraudulent prescription presented in the store's pharmacy. The arrest of two individuals who presented the forged prescription eventually led investigators to the trio.

"They buy the prescription pad on the internet, it has all the same safety features," Kroenke said. "Our pharmacists in the Omaha metro do a fantastic job with spotting these, but they're not perfect and they get by every once in awhile."

According to Kroenke people are willing to pay top dollar for Oxycodone.

"These people are one small part of a bigger drug trafficking organization that does this all over the country. Thirty milligrams of Oxycodone is very valuable in the street," Kroenke added. "It goes for about a dollar a milligram, so you're talking about $30 bucks a pill."

Rhodes was sentenced to 72 months in prison, Fleming was sentenced to 46 months in prison and Sanders was sentenced to 110 months in prison. All three are also ordered to serve three years of supervised release once they are released from prison.