Thread: Feds release list of top 10 health care fugitives

Feds release list of top 10 health care fugitives

By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press
Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 12:47 p.m.

MIAMI — Three Miami brothers are the most wanted health care fugitives in the nation, according to the first such list released Thursday by federal officials.

Carlos, Luis, and Jose Benitez were indicted in 2008 for setting up bogus clinics and charging Medicare $119 million for costly HIV drugs that patients never received. The brothers bought hotels, helicopters, boats and even a water park with their spoils before fleeing to Cuba, authorities said.

Department of Health and Human Services inspector general officials said the top 10 suspects have cost taxpayers more than $124 million. Authorities are seeking more than 170 fugitives charged in health care fraud.

Other top suspects include Leonard Nwafor, who is charged with billing Medicare for $1.1 million in a medical equipment scam in California, and Susan Bendigo, who allegedly billed California's Medicaid program $17.1 million for sending unlicensed nurses to treat patients.

Authorities hope the new list, which includes a website with suspects' photos, will drive callers to the tip hotline. Taxpayers absorb the roughly $60 to $90 billion Medicare fraud costs each year.

"The public has a stake in the fight against fraud, waste, and abuse," said Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson.

Medicare fraud has morphed into sophisticated networks of doctors, patients and patients recruiters. The crimes have moved from medical equipment and infusion drugs to abuses in home health care and mental health services.

Federal authorities have set up teams of law enforcement officers and prosecutors in fraud hot spots around the country including Miami, Houston, Detroit, Brooklyn and Los Angeles.

Health officials have promised to reduce Medicare fraud by preventing crooks from ever entering the program under new authority granted by the Affordable Care Act.

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See the pictures and check out the names of all 10 of them.
Online: http://oig.hhs.gov/fugitives

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011 ... fugitives/

This has been going on for decades.
It's about time they crack down on these crooks.

They come here rob us blind and run back to Cuba. It is time to end the wet foot dry foot policy as they are only coming for economic reasons and then commit various crimes. Healthcare fraud, practicing medicine without a license, operating grow houses, marriage for greencard scams, mortgage fraud, ponzi scheme and the list goes on and on. We read about these crimes on an almost daily basis in the Miami Herald.