More than 300 charged in $14.6 billion health care fraud schemes takedown, Justice Department says

WASHINGTON – State and national prosecutors person charged much than 320 radical and uncovered astir $15 cardinal successful mendacious claims successful what they described Monday arsenic the largest coordinated takedown of wellness attraction fraud schemes successful Justice Department history.

Law enforcement seized much than $245 cardinal successful cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and different assets arsenic prosecutors warned of a increasing propulsion by transnational transgression networks to exploit the U.S. wellness attraction system. As portion of the sweeping crackdown, officials identified perpetrators based successful Russia, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, and different countries.

“These criminals didn’t conscionable bargain idiosyncratic else’s money. They stole from you," Matthew Galeotti, who leads the Justice Department’s transgression division, told reporters Monday. “Every fraudulent claim, each fake billing, each kickback strategy represents wealth taken straight from the pockets of American taxpayers who money these indispensable programs done their hard enactment and sacrifice."

The alleged $14.6 cardinal successful fraud is much than doubly the erstwhile grounds successful the Justice Department’s yearly wellness attraction fraud crackdown. It includes astir 190 national cases and much than 90 authorities cases that person been charged oregon unsealed since June 9. Nearly 100 licensed aesculapian professionals were charged, including 25 doctors, and the authorities reported $2.9 cardinal successful existent losses.

Among the cases is simply a $10 cardinal urinary catheter strategy that authorities accidental highlights the progressively blase methods utilized by transnational transgression organizations. Authorities accidental the radical down the strategy utilized overseas straw owners to secretly bargain up dozens of aesculapian proviso companies and past utilized stolen identities and confidential wellness information to record fake Medicare claims.

Nineteen defendants person been charged arsenic portion of that probe — which authorities dubbed Operation Gold Rush — including 4 radical arrested successful Estonia and 7 radical arrested astatine U.S. airports and astatine the borderline with Mexico, prosecutors said. The strategy progressive the stolen identities and idiosyncratic accusation of much 1 cardinal Americans, according to the Justice Department.

“It's not done by tiny clip operators," said Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “These are organized syndicates who are designing to wounded America.”

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