Feds Announce Arrests of 455 Defendants Responsible for $6.5 Billion in Fraud Looted from the American People

Nick shirley @nickshirleyy

Jun 23

"The fraud is not real"

Today: 455 fraudsters charged, $6.5 billion exposed

*silent*

Society will never improve until people and the media can look at issues with a logical perspective of: Is this right or wrong to be happening?

EXPOSE IT ALL

Think of how many trillions have been stolen -- or allowed to be pilfered by Democrats.

The Justice Department:

National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 455 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $6.5 Billion in Alleged Fraud

The Justice Department today announced the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which resulted in charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes involving over $6.5 billion in false claims and significant patient harm, including death.

Today's Takedown represents a new era in federal, state, and international cooperation to combat health care fraud: cases in 56 federal districts and 45 U.S. states and territories, with 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units participating, the most in Department history.

In addition, unprecedented international cooperation over the two-week Takedown resulted in the apprehension and return to the United States of the following health care fraudsters: one defendant in Kyrenia in connection with an over $3.7 billion scheme; two defendants in Estonia in connection with a previously charged $10.6 billion scheme; and, in the Philippines, one of FBI's Most Wanted Fraudsters in connection with a previously-charged $1.2 billion telemedicine fraud scheme.

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Today's coordinated enforcement action involves a whole-of-government approach, including:

* Actions by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to suspend 1,079 providers and revoke billing privileges for 1,403 providers.

* 48 Civil Monetary Payment settlements amounting to over $73 million, over 1,400 provider exclusions, and 25 actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General ("HHS-OIG") under the Civil Monetary Penalties Law seeking more than $10 billion in payments to the Medicare Trust Fund from payments that CMS caught and suspended before the funds were paid to the fraudulent providers.

* Civil charges against 13 defendants for $14.8 million in health care fraud schemes, as well as civil settlements with 31 defendants totaling $23 million.

* 928 administrative cases by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seeking the revocation of authority to handle and/or prescribe controlled substances since October 1, 2025.

Fake wound graft treatments were a big source of fraud:

Charges were filed against 11 defendants, including a company executive and eight medical professionals, across six districts in connection with billions of dollars in fraudulent claims for amniotic wound allografts. In the District of Arizona, the Vice President of Sales for a company that sold allografts was charged in a nationwide illegal kickback and health care fraud scheme. From approximately December 2021 through June 2024, providers billed Medicare over $4 billion for this company's allografts, resulting in over $2 billion in payments. This significant spike in allograft billings was alleged to have been driven not by medical necessity, but by a kickback scheme that generated substantial profit margins and lavish lifestyles for marketers and providers who participated. The company did not manufacture allografts and instead acquired allografts from tissue banks and relabeled them for sale at a 2,000% mark-up, charging up to $1,450 per square centimeter. The defendant is alleged to have paid illegal kickbacks of approximately 40% of that amount, allowing marketers and medical providers to pocket approximately $500-600 per square centimeter.

The hive of fake hospices in California were raided:

In the Central District of California, charges were brought against a hospice owner and two marketers for a $27.7 million Medicare fraud scheme in which the hospice owner allegedly tried to avoid detection through a scheme to purchase information of the recently deceased from a funeral home employee. The defendant was allegedly carrying out a hospice fraud scheme in which he fraudulently enrolled patients who were not terminally ill.

Concerned that Medicare and law enforcement used data analytics to monitor the percentage of patients discharged from hospice alive (an indicator of fraud), the hospice owner allegedly paid illegal kickbacks of $1,000 to $3,000 per person to a funeral home employee in exchange for deceased Medicare beneficiaries' information. The defendant then allegedly billed Medicare for a few days of hospice services for these recently-deceased individuals who hadn't received hospice care and created fake, back-dated medical records claiming that the beneficiaries had been seen by a physician, thereby allegedly seeking to deceive Medicare by reducing his outlier data metrics.

And of course the fake "adult day care" scam:

In the Eastern District of New York, charges were brought against eight defendants for their role in a $38 million fraud on New York Medicaid for social adult day care services that were medically unnecessary, procured by kickbacks to marketers and beneficiaries, and never provided. Although the permitted occupancy of the social adult day cares (shown below) was only 30 people, the defendants fraudulently submitted claims for services provided to hundreds of beneficiaries per day.

One of Trump's bugaboos is opioid distribution. 28 licensed medical professionals, mostly doctors, were charged in illegally writing opioid prescriptions.

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The defendants allegedly operated a voicemail refill line that allowed patients to request and receive refills of Schedule II controlled substance prescriptions--though some patients who used the refill line to obtain Schedule II controlled substances from the defendants suffered drug overdoses and died, the defendants continued to operate the refill line to prescribe Schedule II controlled substances without interacting with patients.

F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli
@USAttyEssayli

Today, under the leadership of @VP Vance and @DAGToddBlanche, we are announcing the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown involving 455 defendants charged in connection with $6.5+ BILLION in alleged fraud.

One person arrested by @FBILosAngeles in the Central District of California was Jeannie Choi, 57, of Torrance.

She is charged along with two other defendants--Oren David Shachar, 59, of Van Nuys, and Abraham Shin, 66, of Corona--with a hospice fraud scheme that caused Medicare to pay nearly $27 million in fraudulent claims.

Shachar allegedly exploited deceased Medicare beneficiaries by collecting their personal health data and medical records through meetings with surviving relatives. He then directed staff to use those identities to create false, backdated hospice records claiming evaluations and terminal certifications that never occurred.

Shachar paid Choi and Shin between $1,000 and $3,000 for each deceased beneficiary fraudulently enrolled in hospice care.

Shachar and Shin have pleaded not guilty and have a trial scheduled for August 11. Choi is expected to make her initial appearance and be arraigned today in Los Angeles federal court.

Public health programs intended to help the elderly and sick are being undermined by fraudsters, threatening the financial stability of these programs for all Americans. We are committed to rooting out the rampant fraud that has plagued our institutions for too long.

It's not just medical fraud -- the Trump Administration just halted $200 million in fake student aid fraud.

Trump admin requiring gov issued ID to apply for federal student aid saved $200 million in fraud in 2 months

Officials say the real-time screening built into the FAFSA form stops fraudsters before money goes out the door

EXCLUSIVE -- The Department of Education (ED) claims it has blocked nearly $200 million from falling into the hands of fraudsters since launching a strict new identity-verification mandate on April 27.

The nationwide fraud prevention effort requires high-risk applicants to present government-issued identification when applying for federal student aid.

"Since we launched it, we've prevented nearly $200 million from falling into the hands of fraudsters," James Bergeron, Deputy Under Secretary of Education and Acting Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer, told Fox News Digital. "Our new fraud detection tool is at the FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] form level. It stops fraud at the start of the process before the money goes out the door, which is a big priority for the task force."

The department integrated the real-time, risk-based identity screening directly into the online FAFSA application system this spring.

"Effective immediately, fraud detection is built directly into the FAFSA itself, with every applicant evaluated in real-time using risk-based identity screening," the department previously announced. "Applicants who display a certain level of fraud risk will now be required to present government-issued identification before accessing federal student aid funds such as Pell Grants and federal student loans."

Department officials estimate the tool will save taxpayers over $1 billion during the current FAFSA cycle.

According to the department, the strict security posture is a necessary correction to the COVID-19 pandemic era, when the Biden-Harris administration rolled back key verification safeguards. The department claims those previous policies diverted resources away from fraud prevention and required less than 1% of students to verify their identity following their FAFSA submission.

The "enhanced fraud controls" are tailored to intercept sophisticated, modern scams, specifically blocking AI-generated bots and "ghost students"-- fraudulent identities engineered by bad actors to siphon taxpayer-funded loans.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:00 PM

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