US charges 11 people in Russia-based scheme to bilk Medicare of $10bn | US news

American federal prosecutors billed 11 people on Friday in a program based in Russia in Bilk Medicare – the American health insurance program for the elderly and disabled – out of $ 10.6 billion thanks to fraudulent invoicing for expensive medical equipment.

The “transnational criminal organization” orchestrated a “fraud regime in health care and money laundering of several billion dollars” which included the purchase of dozens of medical equipment companies from previous legitimate owners to perpetuate fraud, according to the indictment of June 18.

More than a million Medicare recipients have stolen and used by defendants their personal information to file billions of dollars of Medicare claims and its additional insurers, prosecutors said in the file.

The complaints were filed through suppliers of medical equipment that the group had bought, but no equipment was sent for payments.

Medicare paid “around $ 41 million following fraudulent bids” and additional insurers would have paid $ 900 million more between 2022 and 2024, prosecutors wrote.

The program was organized by Imam Nakhmatullaev, who is based in Russia, said officials, and managed the other accused who were in Estonia, the Czech Republic and the United States.

The fraud was identified after “hundreds of thousands of Americans reported their concerns to Medicare and his entrepreneurs after having received the explanation of the services forms which reflected them allegedly” of the equipment they did not ask or received, according to the accusation.

The organization has moved its product through screens to bank accounts in countries such as Singapore, Pakistan and Israel and laundered it using the cryptocurrency, according to the indictment, reported the New York Times.