Federal authorities said Wednesday they have charged 60 people nationwide, including 31 doctors, for their roles in illegally prescribing and distributing millions of pills containing opioids and other dangerous drugs.

Eight of those arrests were made in Alabama.

U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman of Cincinnati described the action as the biggest known takedown yet of drug prescribers. Robert Duncan, U.S. attorney for eastern Kentucky, called the doctors involved “white-coated drug dealers.”

Authorities said the 60 includes 53 medical professionals tied to some 350,000 prescriptions and 32 million pills. The operation was conducted by the federal Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force, launched last year by the Trump administration.

Authorities said arrests were being made and search warrants carried out as they announced the charges at a news conference.

U.S. health authorities have reported there were more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, for a rate of 21.7 per 100,000 people. West Virginia and Ohio have regularly been among the states with the highest overdose death rates as the opioid crisis has swelled in recent years.

Among those charged was a Tennessee doctor who dubbed himself the "Rock Doc" and is accused of prescribing dangerous combinations of drugs such as fentanyl and oxycodone, sometimes in exchange for sex, authorities said

Others include a Kentucky doctor who is accused of writing prescriptions to Facebook friends who came to his home to pick them up, another who allegedly left signed blank prescriptions for staff to fill out and give to patients he hadn't seen, and a Kentucky dentist accused of removing teeth unnecessarily and scheduling unneeded follow-up appointments.

A Dayton, Ohio, doctor was accused of running a "pill mill" that allegedly dispensed 1.75 million pills in a two-year period. Authorities said an Alabama doctor recruited prostitutes and other women he had sexual relations with to his clinic and allowed them to abuse drugs in his home.

Here are those arrested in Alabama:

Dr. Marshall Plotka, a doctor at Phoenix Emergency Care in Jones Valley, is charged with maintaining drug-involved premises.

Plotka is accused of letting people use heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana at his southeast Huntsville home, according to federal court records. The drug users were often women that Plotka hired as prostitutes and recruited as patients, according to a federal indictment. During a raid in March, authorities found drug paraphernalia in Plotka’s home, court records show.

Police were called 35 times to Plotka’s Chamlee Place home since October 2015, including for an overdose.

Authorities got search warrants for his electronic devices and found messages in which Plotka discussed buying drugs for a woman two months after she overdosed at his home, records show.

Dr. Celia Lloyd-Turney, of Choice Medicine, a clinic in the northwest Madison County community of Toney, is indicted on nine charges of distributing controlled substances, according to federal court records.

In August 2017, the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners restricted Lloyd-Turney’s ability to dispense controlled substances, including limiting the drugs she’s allowed to prescribe and how much she could legally prescribe per patient per day. As part of an agreement with the medical board, Lloyd-Turney admitted she had excessively prescribed controlled substances to 10 patients. The agreement, which included restrictions, allowed her to keep her certificate to prescribe controlled substances.

The restrictions stemmed from an investigation by the Board into Lloyd-Turney’s prescribing behavior at Choice Medicine. Board investigators said she over-prescribed substances to several patients and that she did so with no legitimate medical purpose.

In May 2018, Lloyd-Turney was sued for wrongful death by the family of Felicia Ann Kelly, a former patient who died two years earlier at age 30. The lawsuit says she died from “mixed drug toxicity,” with toxicology tests detecting “fatal levels” of oxycodone and other drugs.

Federal court records allege Lloyd-Turney “prescribed dangerous combinations of drugs known to heighten the risk of overdose and death.”

Dr. John Cimino, of the Center for Women’s Healthcare in Huntsville, is charged along with Katherine Barnett, a marketer for a pharmacy and the owner of Medical Sports Performance LLC, in a health care fraud case, according to federal court records.

Dr. Elizabeth Korcz, 46, and Matthew Korcz, 45, who served as her office manager at the former Hoover Alt MD on South Shades Crest Road, were taken into custody shortly before 7:30 a.m. by Drug Enforcement Administration Agents and Hoover police in a traffic stop near their home.

The couple, whose office was first raided in August 2017, is named in a 15-count federal indictment issued under seal in March and made public Wednesday following their arrests. They are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance; one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises; five counts unlawful distribution of a controlled substance; one count conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud; and seven counts health care fraud.

Their pharmacy technician, Austin Haskew, also was indicted on similar charges.

Hoover Alt MD, which is now believed to be closed, touted an innovative type of medical practice, combining traditional family medicine as well as alternative medical therapies and practices. That alternative care, according to their website at the time of the 2017 raid, included natural medicine, acupuncture, biofeedback, hypnosis, bioidentical hormone balancing, sensory stimulation and breast thermography, according to the website.

The practice also offered counseling, prayer, relaxation therapy, natural and medicated weight loss treatments, fitness advice, pain management, suboxone addiction recovery services, Botox, facials, chemical peels and blemish removal, according to the website.

Federal agents on Aug. 25, 2017 seized $56,045 from two accounts held by Hoover Alt MD PC, according to federal court documents. Since then the clinic has fought in federal court to get the money back.

Christopher Wray was charged with forging prescriptions. He’s accused of creating falsified prescriptions, at least once using a computer at the Guntersville Public Library, court records show. Between December 2018 and February 2019, Wray used falsified documentation to have more than 1,400 pills filled at local pharmacies, according to a federal indictment.

“Sometimes the only difference between a drug dealer and a doctor is the white coat,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Town, of the Northern District of Alabama.

Most of those charged came from the five strike force states of Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. One person each was also arrested in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

“The opioid crisis is the deadliest drug crisis in American history, and Appalachia has suffered the consequences more than perhaps any other region,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a statement in Washington.

Alabamians who are seeking help for opioid addiction can call 1-866-264-4073.

Information about substance abuse and opioids is available at the following websites:

http://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/pharmacy/opioid-and-heroin.html

https://mh.alabama.gov/understanding-the-opioid-crisis/

AL.com reporter Anna Claire Vollers contributed to this story.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the location of Phoenix Emergency Care.