The Watauga County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Unit, the Boone Police Department, the Avery County Sheriff’s Office, and the US Drug Enforcement Administration wounded up fourteen people believed to be involved in a conspiracy to fraudulently collect 130,000 prescription pills with a street value of about $4 million. The cases, built in an investigation nicknamed “Operation Pillbilly,” would be thrown out of court for verbal insensitivity if hillbillies were minorities.