Fraud Takedown Nets 111 in False Billing Schemes

WASHINGTON — Medicare’s Fraud Strike Force has charged 111
defendants in nine cities with alleged fraud schemes, HHS and the
Department of Justice announced Feb. 17. Authorities said the
operation was the largest-ever federal health care fraud
takedown.

All told, the doctors, nurses, health care company executives
and others charged in the indictments and complaints were
responsible for more than $225 million in fraudulent billing,
officials said.

Arrests were made in Miami; Los Angeles; New York; 
Detroit; Houston; Tampa, Fla.; Baton Rouge, La.;  and in
Dallas and Chicago, where U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said
Strike Force operations will be added. The administration’s FY 2012
budget proposes expanding the multi-agency program, created in
2007, from its current seven cities to 20.

More than 700 agents from the FBI, HHS’ Office of Inspector
General, multiple Medicaid Fraud Control Units and state and local
law enforcement agencies rounded up the defendants in Thursday’s
operation. In addition to making arrests, agents also executed 16
search warrants across the country in connection with ongoing
investigations.

The message is clear, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer
said in a DOJ release: “We are determined to put Medicare
fraudsters out of business.”

A day earlier, Breuer announced charges against 102 members of
“transnational organized criminal groups,”  including Armenian
Power, in Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Calif.; Miami; and Denver.

While the charges range from extortion and kidnapping to
firearms trafficking, two indictments unsealed in Miami allege
health care fraud schemes running from 2007 to the present related
to the operation of two medical clinics.

Read the DOJ’s Feb. 17 release on the Fraud Strike Force
action.

Read the DOJ’s Feb. 16 release on the transnational
groups.