(CNN) Drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and practitioners acted as street couriers and shipped "hundreds of millions" of suspicious opioid doses over 20 years to two Ohio counties, according to a motion filed in federal court for the Northern District of Ohio.

The motion filed Friday by attorneys for Summit and Cuyahoga counties paint a picture of drug companies driven by greed in part for their failure to report suspicious shipments of prescription painkillers that helped fuel the opioid epidemic.

Companies certified to manufacture and distribute the drugs are required by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to monitor for "suspicious" orders, defined by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as those of unusual size, frequency or pattern. The manufacturers and distributors are required to report those orders, unless it's been determined the drugs are not likely to be "diverted into illegal channels."

For some defendants "these 'suspicious order' shipments represented as much as 80% of the total opioid transactions and as much as 92% of the dosage units shipped" to Summit and Cuyahoga counties, court documents said.

Last week, a database charting the course of opioid pills across the country was released, shedding new light on the scope of the drug industry's alleged role in the opioid crisis.

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