Woman accused of impersonating a pharmacist and filling 745,000 prescriptions

Authorities in Northern California say that for more than a decade, a woman in the San Francisco Bay Area pretended to be a pharmacist, and ultimately filled more than 745,000 prescriptions at various Walgreens.
The suspect, Kim Thien Le, was arrested and charged on Friday, authorities announced Tuesday. She does not have a pharmacist license, and in order to get hired, she provided license numbers of actual registered pharmacists, The Associated Press reports. She worked at Walgreens locations in Santa Clara and Alameda counties, and was active from late 2006 to 2017.
Prosecutors say that of the 745,000 prescriptions she allegedly dispensed, 100,000 were for highly addictive opioids like fentanyl.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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