MIAMI -- State and federal agents have busted an Internet drug ring operating in South Florida, law enforcement officials said today.

Nearly two-dozen people have been arrested over the past few weeks and more than $2 million in cash have been seized in Operation Backroom. Agents also seized 650,000 pills, which they estimate to be worth about $1.9 million. The prosecution is the state's biggest ever for an Internet operation distributing controlled drugs.

Investigators said the suspects would fill orders for heavy-duty painkillers without prescriptions or pharmacists. The vast majority of the orders were for the powerful and highly addictive hydrocodone, investigators said.

"The individuals that are involved in this particular investigation are no different, no different at all, from the drug peddlers that you find on the street. They're just hiding behind the Internet," said James Capra of the DEA.

The drug ring set up shop at numerous locations around South Florida, investigators said. They estimate that each of those locations filled as many as 2,000 orders.