HOUSTON -- Working on a tip, detectives from the Houston Police Department’s narcotics division set up surveillance on an apartment in the 2200 block of Kirkwood.

It paid off.

Only 11 News was there when HPD undercover officers hauled in 58,000 hydrocodone and soma pills.

And they arrested Herbert Banny Gibbs.

Police call him the "Pill Guru" of the Gulf Coast. We checked his criminal history and it was one of the longest we have ever seen. All his arrests and convictions are drug related crimes dating back to the 1970's.

Narcotics officers say the pills were selling for at least $5 a piece on the street, adding up to more than a quarter million dollars.

“That's one man. That's one man getting busted with 58,000 pills,” said John Will, he clinical director of Chemical Dependency Services at West Oaks Hospital. “How many of those people are out there?”

Will believes there are a lot more. And he and narcotics officers believe lawmakers could do more to keep the pills off the street.

For starters, this state has no doctor shopping laws.

They  have support too from an ex-user who is in treatment.

We’ll call him Bill to protect his identity.

He said he often bought drugs from dealers who sent people into pain clinics every day.

“It's actually a business. Those are the pill brokers you know, the dealers you go to,” said Bill. “They have their workers who go to the doctors or the clinics get all the pills by the thousands and then sell them on the street. It's done everyday.”

Police believe Gibbs was a major pill broker and was making a good living. Until an important tip paid off.