MIAMI -- More than 50 Miami-Dade County and school district employees were among 62 people arrested for their alleged participation in an illegal prescription drug ring.

The 58 employees arrested include 17 school bus drivers, two Miami-Dade Transit bus drivers and Department of Solid Waste Management employees. Three are Miami-Dade Public Schools custodians, two are teachers' aides, two work for the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department and one is a crane operator for the city of Miami.

What they and the others have in common is their taxpayer-subsidized health insurance benefits that allowed them to fill fake prescriptions for the painkiller OxyContin and provide the drug to black market dealers, according to prosecutors.

"Here are some public employees, albeit perhaps not making as much money as they would like, they got greedy and for an extra $300 to $500 in their pocket, they were able to abuse this public benefit," said Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle in a news conference Wednesday.

OxyContin is a powerful painkiller that can be deadly when abused. Prosecutors cited statistics that show three times as many Floridians died from OxyContin overdoses as from heroin overdoses last year.

Hialeah police Officer Danette Dell was among those arrested. Her superiors said she was hired in September 2004, almost a year after the alleged incident. Hialeah police have relieved Dell of patrol duties and suspended her without pay pending the outcome of the investigation.

Wednesday's arrests are the result of information and evidence from a former South Florida doctor who is serving a federal prison sentence for a similar crime. Federal agents arrested then-Dr. Ronald Harris three years ago for OxyContin prescription fraud.

At the time, 29 Miami-Dade County school employees were also arrested and accused of using their health insurance benefit to fill his phony prescriptions.

The latest round of arrests include six so-called "recruiters" who, prosecutors said, found public employees willing to use their health benefits for prescription fraud.

"The public employees would go fill the prescriptions, get their bottles of pills, turn around and give it back to the recruiters and, in exchange for that, would get about $300 to $500 in their pocket," said Fernandez Rundle.

Prosecutors estimate almost 13,000 pills -- about $95,000 worth -- likely sold on South Florida streets for many times that amount.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesman John Schuster said district employees who were arrested will be reassigned to positions where they will not come in contact with students.