Federal officials claim to have cracked the biggest health care fraud schemes in history

Independent

6 hours ago

State and federal prosecutors have announced a flurry of arrests and charges in recent days for more than 320 defendants who allegedly engaged in various health care schemes worth a collective $14.6 billion in intended losses.
Taken together, the cases represent the largest mass interception of health care fraud in Justice Department history, according to federal officials, who publicized the cases on Monday as part of the 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown.
'This record-setting Health Care Fraud Takedown delivers justice to criminal actors who prey upon our most vulnerable citizens and steal from hardworking American taxpayers,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. 'Make no mistake – this administration will not tolerate criminals who line their pockets with taxpayer dollars while endangering the health and safety of our communities.'
The takedown involved multiple investigations, some dating back years.
One effort, dubbed Operation Gold Rush, began in 2023, and has since netted charges in New York, Illinois, California, Florida, and New Jersey against 19 defendants, who are accused of working to submit $10.6 billion in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare for urinary catheters and other medical supplies using over one million stolen identities.
The alleged scheme, carried out by defendants with ties to organized crime in Russia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, resulted in a flood of hundreds of thousands of complaints to the government health service, and unwittingly involved over 7,000 physicians whose identities were used without their knowledge.
Medicare was ultimately hit with more than 1 billion catheters worth of fraudulent claims.
'I don't even know if [the United States] has the ability to manufacture 1 billion catheters in such a short time,' Isaac Bledsoe, director of strategic projects and initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general's office, who co-led the investigation with the DOJ and FBI, told The Washington Post. 'The absurdity, the brazenness of these actors is really just astounding.'
More than 99 percent of the fraudulent payments never reached the perpetrators, federal officials said.
Another alleged scheme announced as part of the bust involved a $650 million plot in which a Pakistani national who, working with at least 41 clinics, allegedly recruited patients from Arizona's Native American reservations, some of them homeless, and used their identities to submit claims for substance abuse treatment that were never given.
All told, between the operations, law enforcement seized more than $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other assets as prosecutors warned of a growing push by transnational criminal networks to exploit the U.S. health care system.
'These criminals didn't just steal someone else's money. They stole from you," Matthew Galeotti, who leads the Justice Department's criminal division, told reporters Monday. 'Every fraudulent claim, every fake billing, every kickback scheme represents money taken directly from the pockets of American taxpayers who fund these essential programs through their hard work and sacrifice."
Ultimately, the takedown involved 324 defendants across 50 federal districts and 12 state attorneys general offices.