{"id":229375,"date":"2025-07-01T13:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229375\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T13:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:17:09","slug":"us-says-it-has-halted-healthcare-fraud-schemes-worth-nearly-15bn-us-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229375\/","title":{"rendered":"US says it has halted healthcare fraud schemes worth nearly $15bn | US crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US justice department said on Monday that it halted a series of healthcare<\/a> fraud schemes that sought to bilk the federal government out of $14.6bn.<\/p>\n

The operation, which the department called the largest healthcare fraud initiative in its history, led to criminal charges against 324 defendants and the seizure of more than $245m in cash, luxury cars and other assets. The actual loss to the US government totaled about $2.9bn, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday marks a decisive moment in our fight to protect American taxpayers from fraudsters and to defend the integrity of America\u2019s healthcare system,\u201d Matthew Galeotti, the head of the justice department\u2019s criminal division, told reporters during a press conference.<\/p>\n

Those charged include 93 doctors and other medical professionals accused of submitting false claims to government healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Some of the schemes were run by transnational criminal organizations based outside the US, that have been perpetrating increasingly complex fraud operations targeting the American healthcare system, justice department officials said.<\/p>\n

One such scheme, which prosecutors said was run out of Russia and eastern European countries, led to charges against 19 defendants, 12 of whom have been arrested.<\/p>\n

The group used a network of foreign straw owners to buy dozens of US medical supply companies and, using stolen American identities, submitted more than $10bn in fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to the justice department.<\/p>\n

Among those whose identities were compromised was Gerald Quindry, a 73-year-old retired engineer on Medicare. He was billed $15,500 for urinary catheters, though his doctor never ordered them nor did Quindry want nor receive them, as the Washington Post<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Quindry \u2013 who told the Post, \u201cobviously, somebody deserves to be in jail\u201d over the plot \u2013 had complained to Medicare, but program representatives had initially seemed unbothered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not being done by small-time operators,\u201d said Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. \u201cThese are organized syndicates who are designing to hurt America.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US justice department said on Monday that it halted a series of healthcare fraud schemes that sought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-229375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114778173847813412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}