Fugitive Profiles
OIG Fugitive: Iftikhar Ghouri
- In May 2009, Iftikhar Ghouri was indicted on charges of Health Care Fraud, Payment of Kickbacks, and Criminal Forfeiture. Investigators believe that Ghouri and his co-conspirators submitted approximately $9 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for physical and occupational therapy services and treatments that were not provided or were medically unnecessary.
- According to court documents, Ghouri operated All American Rehab Care, Inc. (AARC), a purported physical and occupational therapy provider. Ghouri allegedly paid kickbacks to health care professionals to persuade them to refer patients to AARC for therapy.
- Additionally, Ghouri and his co-conspirators allegedly created false physical and occupational therapy files using information that they either purchased or stole from Medicare beneficiaries. The files were then given to approved Medicare providers, who billed Medicare for physical and occupational therapy services that were not provided.
- Investigators believe that Ghouri went to Canada in September 2007 and has since traveled to Pakistan, where he was born and may be currently residing.
OIG Fugitives: Maricel B. Hernandez & Eugenio R. Hernandez
- In December 2007, a 38-count indictment was filed charging Eugenio R. Hernandez, Maricel B. Hernandez, and Jorge Ramirez with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering.
- According to court documents, Eugenio Hernandez was the reported owner of S.L. Medical Center, Inc.; Maricel Hernandez was the reported owner of Care Medical Office, Inc.; and Jorge Ramirez was the reported owner of the Rehabilitation Institute and Science Clinic, Inc. All three companies operated in the greater Miami area and purportedly provided infusion therapy to Medicare patients suffering from blood disorders and other conditions.
- Investigators believe that these companies billed Medicare more than $110 million between April and December 2005 for infusion therapy services that were never provided to patients. After receiving payments from Medicare, the defendants allegedly laundered the fraudulently obtained funds through various shell companies to conceal the scheme to defraud and use the funds for their personal benefit.
- Eugenio and Maricel Hernandez fled the country and are believed to be residing in Cuba.
- Ramirez was captured in December 2008 at Miami International Airport. He pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud and is serving his nearly 6-year jail sentence. Ramirez was also ordered to pay over $4 million in restitution.
OIG Fugitive: Luciano Velazquez
- In February 2010, Luciano Velazquez was indicted on charges of Health Care Fraud, False Statements Related to Health Care Fraud Matters, and Aggravated Identity Theft. Investigators believe that through his fraudulent companies, Velazquez billed Medicare more than $8 million in false claims, collecting approximately $2.9 million.
- Velazquez owned and operated Luciano Medical Center and S & A Rehabilitation Center (SARC), both located in Hialeah, Florida, just outside of Miami. Both centers purported to provide medical services, including rare outpatient HIV infusion and cancer drug therapies.
- According to the indictment, Velazquez submitted false Medicare Enrollment Applications in order to fraudulently receive claim payments for services allegedly provided by Florida physicians. Additionally, Velazquez allegedly used the identifying information of Medicare beneficiaries to submit claims for services that were never provided.
- Velazquez also owned and controlled Velazquez Development of Florida, an alleged shell company by which proceeds from the fraudulent scheme were moved.
- Approximately $175,000 was seized from SARC's bank account through a warrant in November 2007.
- Velazquez is currently at large.
OIG Fugitive: Ekaterina Shlykova
- In October 2009, a felony complaint was filed in California against Ekaterina Shlykova for a total of 67 charges, including Identity Theft, Money Laundering, Forgery, and Theft.
- Shlykova was the office manager of Lazarus Jewelry, an alleged "shell" company based in Los Angeles. During a search conducted at Lazarus Jewelry, agents found hundreds of bank accounts and monetary instruments as well as dozens of pieces of stolen personally identifiable information.
- Shlykova is known to use multiple identities, including the name Marina Ruslanovna Sekinaeva. According to the felony complaint, this name was obtained at the same time that fraudulent information was obtained by Evgeny Lyadov, who is charged separately with Grand Theft and Making Fraudulent Claims Against Medicare.
- Investigators believe that Shlykova and her co-conspirators were involved in a scheme in which various Durable Medical Equipment companies submitted false Medicare claims for dead beneficiaries and beneficiaries who lived out of the local area. These companies then allegedly used Lazarus Jewelry to launder approximately $53 million that they fraudulently obtained from Medicare.
- Shlykova remains at large.
OIG Fugitive: Enrique Gonzalez
- In May 2008, Enrique Gonzalez (aka Enrique Gonzalez Figueredo) and co-conspirator Ronald Harris were indicted on charges of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, to Cause the Submission of False Claims, and to Pay Health Care Kickbacks; Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud; Submission of False Claims; Money Laundering; Money Laundering Conspiracy; and False Statements. Investigators believe that Gonzalez and Harris billed Medicare for over $26 million for medical services that were not provided or were not necessary.
- Also involved in the conspiracy but charged separately were OIG Most Wanted Fugitives Carlos, Luis, and Jose Benitez. The Benitez brothers allegedly owned approximately 11 medical clinics, including Physicians Med-Care and Physicians Health Med-Care. They were indicted in May 2008 for what investigators believe was a $100 million Medicare fraud scheme. Arrest warrants were issued for all three brothers, who remain at large.
- Gonzalez was the director of Physicians Med-Care and Physicians Health Med-Care, two Florida-based medical clinics that allegedly provided infusion therapy for HIV patients. Harris was a Miami physician who worked for the clinics as the medical director and whose identifying information was allegedly used to bill Medicare for services.
- According to the indictment, Gonzalez provided cash to his co-conspirators for the purpose of paying kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries. In return, the beneficiaries signed documents stating that they received treatments at the clinics, even though the treatments were not provided or were not necessary. The clinics then billed Medicare for these treatments. Investigators believe that after receiving payments from Medicare, Gonzalez and his co-conspirators transferred approximately $3.4 million to sham management, marketing, and investment companies owned and operated by their co-conspirators.
- Gonzalez is also charged with making false statements after allegedly lying to Federal agents when interviewed during the investigation. Gonzalez was recently detained in Peru, and U.S. authorities are working with the Peruvian Government to have him extradited to the United States. In November 2008, Harris was sentenced to 84 months in prison and ordered to pay $9.8 million in restitution.
- Other conspirators in the scheme included: Thomas McKenzie, a physician's assistant who worked with the Benitez brothers at the clinics and who was sentenced in December 2008 to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $84 million in restitution; Ana Alvarez-Jacinto, a physician who worked with the Benitez brothers at one of their clinics and who was sentenced in December 2008 to 30 years in prison; Sandra Mateos, a nurse (and ex-wife of Luis Benitez) who worked with the Benitez brothers at one of their clinics and who was sentenced to 7 years in prison; and Carmen Gonzalez, a nurse who was employed by the Benitez brothers and who has a bench warrant out for her arrest and remains a fugitive.
OIG Fugitive: Rodolfo Bouza
- In October 2008, an arrest warrant was issued for Rodolfo Bouza on health care fraud charges for allegedly billing Medicare for more than $750,000 in false claims.
- Bouza owned and operated Newburg Services, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, that purportedly provided bandages and durable medical equipment (DME) to Medicare beneficiaries.
- Investigators believe that Bouza, through his company, billed Medicare for DME that was never provided to beneficiaries or prescribed by a physician. Bouza allegedly stole the provider numbers of physicians, as well as the names and personally identifiable information of Medicare beneficiaries.
- Investigators interviewed staff of two physicians whose names were on the DME billing records as prescribing physicians. Both practices said they never heard of Newburg Services, and none of the beneficiaries on the lists were patients of the physicians. Investigators also contacted beneficiaries purported to have received DME supplies from Newburg Services, and the beneficiaries said they never heard of the company and never received DME supplies from the company.
- Bouza remains at large.
OIG Fugitive: Robert Allen Lopez
- In July 1995, Robert Allen Lopez was arrested in Miami and charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Lopez is suspected of causing over $4 million in false Medicare claims to be filed.
- According to the indictment, from July 1991 until June 1994, Lopez and others conspired to defraud the United States Government by filing false Medicare claims and structuring cash transactions to evade currency reporting requirements.
- Investigators found that Lopez established numerous companies in Miami using fake owners to conceal the fact that he was the true owner of these companies. These companies allegedly filed false Medicare claims on behalf of beneficiary recipients for services that were either medically unnecessary or were not provided.
- According to the indictment, Lopez also allegedly recruited friends and relatives to assist him as fake owners. He directed them to open bank accounts where the fraudulently obtained Medicare checks were deposited and easily converted to cash. To avoid currency reporting requirements for cash transactions exceeding $10,000, it is believed that Lopez directed the fake owners to make structured cash withdrawals from the accounts.
- On July 31, 1995, Lopez was arrested, charged with conspiracy, and released on bail on the condition that he not change his residence or leave the area without first obtaining permission from the United States Probation Office. Lopez violated the terms of his release when he could not be found at his residence and later failed to appear for sentencing. Authorities believe Lopez may be in Mexico or Colombia.
OIG Fugitive: Anupal Gayen
- In May 2009, an arrest warrant was issued for Anupal Gayen on charges of health care fraud and health care fraud conspiracy.
- According to court documents, Gayen and his codefendants controlled several medical therapy and medical services companies in Michigan and allegedly paid Medicare beneficiaries to sign Medicare reimbursement forms for treatment and services that were not provided. Gayen and his co-conspirators then allegedly filed the reimbursement forms with Medicare, fraudulently seeking payment.
- Through their scheme, Gayen and his co-conspirators are believed to have submitted more than $18 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
- When Gayen was confronted about his participation in the scheme, he fled the United States and remains at large.
OIG Fugitives:
Andrei (aka Andre) Vulpe & Valentin Munteanu
- In February 2007, Andrei (aka Andre) Vulpe and Valentin Munteanu were charged in the State of Arizona with fraudulent schemes, theft, and aggravated identity theft. According to charging documents, between January and November 2007, Vulpe and Valentin Munteanu attempted to defraud Medicare of over $3.5 million by billing for durable medical equipment that was either not medically necessary or not provided to Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona.
- Munteanu owned Pride Medical Supplies in Scottsdale and Vulpe owned AV Medical Supplies in Mesa. It is believed that through their companies, Munteanu and Vulpe conspired with others to submit false and fraudulent claims to Medicare and launder the unlawfully obtained proceeds.
- Munteanu and Vulpe allegedly obtained Medicare beneficiaries' information and used physicians' information without their knowledge to bill Medicare. In addition, Munteanu allegedly stole the identity of another individual in this fraudulent scheme.
- Munteanu and Vulpe have fled the country, and their whereabouts are unknown.
OIG Fugitive: Susan Bendigo
- In February 2009, Susan Bendigo (aka Susan Lim) and co-conspirators were accused in a Federal indictment of billing Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, for $17.1 million in fraudulent claims. Approximately $10 million was paid to Bendigo and others; about half of which came from the claims she submitted for services that were allegedly provided by unlicensed staff.
- Bendigo was a registered nurse and also the Director of Nursing for MedCare Plus Home Health Provider, Inc. (MedCare), operating in Santa Fe Springs, California. MedCare purportedly provided nurses for home health agencies. Investigators believe that, from May 2004 through May 2007, Bendigo sent unlicensed nurses to treat patients under Medi-Cal, even though she knew that Medi-Cal required licensed nurses to perform the work.
- Bendigo remains at large. Authorities believe she may be residing in the Philippines.
OIG Fugitive: Gautam Gupta
- On June 13, 2011, an arrest warrant was issued against Gautam Gupta, charging him with health care fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud. Dr. Gupta and his associates allegedly received approximately $25 million in reimbursements from Medicaid and private health insurers for medical services that were either unnecessary or not performed.
- Dr. Gupta owned and operated the Nutrition Clinic, a weight loss clinic with several locations in Northern Illinois and the Chicago metropolitan area. According to the arrest warrant, the clinic required new patients to undergo medical tests, such as thyroid ultrasounds and echocardiograms, without regard to medical necessity for the tests. The Nutrition Clinic would then submit claims to Medicaid and private insurance companies, indicating that these tests were related to a specific medical diagnosis.
- The clinic also allegedly submitted claims for "evaluation and management" services performed by Dr. Gupta, when in actuality neither Dr. Gupta nor any other medical doctor saw these patients. In addition, investigators found that Dr. Gupta directed office staff to enlist insured patients for additional procedures, such as "nuclear stress tests" that were not medically necessary. The clinic would then bill the patients, Medicaid, and private insurers for those services.
- Authorities believe that Gupta is currently residing in India.
- On July 14, 2011, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois issued another news release related to Dr. Gupta: Indictment Charges Two Doctors with Defrauding Medicaid, Insurance Companies of $24 Million in Operation of Weight-Loss Clinics
OIG Fugitives:
Iyaye Ishmael & Tom Henderson Alabraba
- In April 2010, Iyaye Ishmael, Tom Henderson Alabraba, and their co-conspirators were indicted on charges of conspiracy, health care fraud, and identify theft.
- From approximately July 2004 to November 2009, Ishmael, Alabraba, and others allegedly defrauded the Medicare program by billing Medicare more than $8.5 million for reimbursement for durable medical equipment that was either never provided, not legally prescribed, or not medically necessary.
- Ishmael was reported to be president of United Medical Services and co-owner of Central Medical, Inc. Alabraba was reportedly president of Tal-MED. All three were durable medical equipment supply companies in the Kansas City, Kansas area. According to the indictment, Ishmael, Alabraba, and others would fraudulently use the stolen identity of physicians in order to submit claims for equipment for beneficiaries whom the physicians had never seen. The companies would either not provide the equipment or would provide a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment compared to the cost of the equipment billed to Medicare.
- Ishmael, Alabraba, and their co-conspirators would allegedly share beneficiary information in order to submit additional Medicare billings.
- One of Ishmael and Alabraba's co-conspirators has pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud and Health Care Fraud. Another is awaiting trial.
- Authorities believe that Ishmael may be residing in Nigeria. Alabraba's whereabouts are unknown; he was last reported to be in Katy, Texas.
Other Wanted Fugitives
OIG Fugitive: Jose Garcia-Suarez
- In October 2008, Jose Garcia-Suarez was indicted on charges of conspiracy, health care fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
- From May 2007 to March 2008, Garcia-Suarez and others allegedly billed Medicare for $333,000 for intravenous infusion cancer treatments that were never performed.
- Garcia-Suarez was president of Continuum Care Solutions, a company that purportedly provided infusion therapy services. According to the indictment, Garcia-Suarez applied to be a Medicare provider using the illegally obtained identification of four physicians who had Medicare provider numbers. He then used the doctors' names as the company's physicians in order to submit at least nine fraudulent bills for reimbursement from Medicare for intravenous infusion cancer treatments that were never performed.
- Authorities believe that Garcia-Suarez may be residing in the Dominican Republic.
OIG Fugitive: Pablo Sanu-Yasell
- In October 2008, Pablo Sanu-Yasell was indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
- From September 2007 to March 2008, Sanu-Yasell and others allegedly defrauded the Medicare program by submitting $120,000 in fraudulent claims for intravenous infusion cancer treatments that were never performed.
- Sanu-Yasell was president of Longer Life Services, a company that purportedly provided infusion therapy services. According to court papers, Sanu-Yasell applied to be a Medicare provider using the illegally obtained identification of four physicians who were Medicare providers. Sanu-Yasell then used the doctors' names as the company's physicians in order to submit fraudulent bills for reimbursement from Medicare for intravenous infusion cancer treatments that were never performed.
- Authorities believe that Sanu-Yasell may be residing in the Dominican Republic.
OIG Fugitive: Muhammad Azeem
- In May 2009, an arrest warrant was issued for Muhammad Azeem on charges of health care fraud conspiracy, health care fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. It is believed that through their alleged scheme, Azeem and his accomplices submitted over $18 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
- According to court documents, from January 2003 through March 2007, Azeem and his co-defendants controlled several medical therapy and medical services companies in Michigan and paid Medicare beneficiaries to sign Medicare reimbursement forms for medical treatment and services that were not provided.
- After receiving the signed Medicare forms, it is alleged that Azeem and his accomplices filed the forms with Medicare, seeking payment for services and treatment that were not actually provided to the beneficiaries.
- Azeem and his co-conspirators also established several fictitious companies in an effort to conceal the money and assets gained from the scheme.
- Azeem fled the United States after being confronted by authorities about his participation in the scheme, and he remains at large.
OIG Fugitive:
Ezechukwu "Dr. Joshua" Ohaka
- Ezechukwu Ohaka, along with co-conspirators, allegedly submitted more than $3.1 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for durable medical equipment (DME), according to a Federal indictment. The "gross proceeds of the fraud" allegedly totaled approximately $1.08 million, the indictment stated.
- Through his Houston-based company, Luant & Odera, Inc., Ohaka and others allegedly billed for medically unnecessary power wheelchairs, motorized scooters, and wheelchair accessories that were either not medically necessary or were not provided. In some instances, Ohaka and others purportedly would bill Medicare for more expensive wheelchairs than they provided to beneficiaries.
- The beneficiaries who received the scooters and wheelchairs had either not been to a doctor, did not have a prescription, as required by Medicare, and/or did not meet medical necessity requirements as defined by Medicare.
- Falsely referring to himself as a doctor ("Dr. Joshua Ohaka"), Ohaka and co-conspirators targeted Medicare beneficiaries who were living in the paths of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
- Ohaka, originally from Nigeria, allegedly paid kickbacks to individuals to recruit Medicare beneficiaries so that Luant could file bogus claims with Medicare for DME.
OIG Fugitive: Gustavo Adolfo Smith
- In April 2008, Gustavo Adolfo Smith was convicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, health care fraud, submission of false claims, and money laundering.
- According to court records, from February 2005 to May 2007, Smith owned and operated MedStar Services, a durable medical equipment (DME) company in the Miami area. Smith was responsible for submitting more than $2.9 million in bills to Medicare for medical equipment that was never provided to Medicare beneficiaries. From these claims submissions, Smith received approximately $1.5 million from Medicare.
- Smith persuaded his associates to register as the president and registered agents of MedStar so he could remain hidden to operate the fraudulent scheme. Smith maintained the majority of control over MedStar and he attempted to launder proceeds from his fraudulent claims by withdrawing and wire-transferring approximately $200,000 to a bank in Canada.
- After being convicted, Smith was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device while awaiting sentencing. On June 14, 2008, Smith's monitoring device set off an alert; authorities responding to the alert were unable to locate Smith. Later on the same day, authorities learned that Smith had boarded a flight from Miami to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
OIG Fugitive: Carlos Warter
- Carlos Warter was a medical doctor licensed to practice medicine in the State of Hawaii. From December 2004 through December 2008, he fraudulently billed the Hawaii Medicaid program, Hawaii QUEST (the State's Medicaid managed care program), Hawaii Blue Cross Blue Shield, and TRICARE for services not provided and for inflated services.
- Through the false and inflated claims, Warter billed these programs approximately $1 million and received approximately $530,000 in purported reimbursements.
- Warter operated a psychiatry practice in Hawaii, but he frequently traveled out of state and out of country for business and personal purposes. Warter submitted claims for psychotherapy services supposedly provided by him on days when he was not in Hawaii.
- According to a Federal indictment, claims submitted by Warter overstated the amount of time spent with his patients. Many of the claims submitted represented that he had provided psychotherapy sessions of 45-50 minutes or 75-80 minutes, but these sessions usually lasted only 15-20 minutes.
- Warter was arrested by Argentina officials on May 23, 2011 based on a U.S. request for provisional arrest pending Federal charges.
OIG Fugitive: Oleg Kheyson
- Between September 2006 and July 2010, in the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, Oleg Kheyson and others participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare, a U.S. Government-sponsored health care program. It is alleged that during the time of the conspiracy and scheme to defraud Medicare, Best Equipment submitted fraudulent claims in the amount of approximately $1.28 million.
- Kheyson was a co-owner of Best Equipment, a medical provider certified (or otherwise authorized) to provide medical supplies to Medicare patients at a location on West 1st Street in Brooklyn. In 2008, Kheyson and others requested to add a second Best Equipment site on Brighton 13th Street; Medicare rejected this application, and thus Kheyson was never authorized to treat patients from the Brighton 13th Street site. However, despite this rejection, our evidence shows that from 2006 through July 2010, Kheyson and others billed Medicare for thousands of services from the unauthorized Brighton 13th Street site by submitting the claims through his certified location on West 1st Street.
- Kheyson and others also defrauded Medicare by submitting fraudulent claims for orthopedic insoles. In order for Best Equipment to receive reimbursement for orthopedic insoles, the Medicare patient had to have a shoe that was an integral part of a leg brace that was covered by Medicare.
- However, upon review of billing data for whom Best Equipment claimed it provided orthopedic insoles, none of the patients received orthopedic shoes or leg braces from Best Equipment or any other Medicare provider; therefore, all of the claims for orthopedic insoles were considered fraudulent.
OIG Fugitive: Etienne Allonce
- In December 2007, Etienne Allonce and his wife, Helene Michel, were indicted on charges of health care fraud. Allonce and Michel were owners of Medical Solutions Management, Inc. (MSM), a durable medical equipment (DME) company operating out of Hicksville, NY. Tri-State Surgical Supply (Tri-State) is a DME company that has a contract with numerous nursing homes in Long Island, Queens, and Brooklyn, to provide Medicare and Medicaid covered DME supplies to residents.
- According to the indictment, MSM employees allegedly posed as sub-contractors for Tri-State in order to gain access to several nursing homes. Once they entered the nursing homes under false pretenses, MSM employees allegedly accessed medical charts (containing private information protected by The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 or HIPAA) for residents who required specialized wound care. MSM then allegedly billed Medicare Part B and/or and Medicaid for wound care supplies that were never ordered or provided.
- It is also believed that MSM employees stole original documents containing HIPAA information from medical charts in facilities, in order to "manufacture" fraudulent MSM charts in an effort to legitimize their medical billings.
- In July 2007, Michel was arrested and charged with illegal reentry into the United States after being deported to Haiti several years earlier. After Michel and Allonce were indicted on health care fraud charges for their participation in the aforementioned scheme, Allonce fled the United States to avoid prosecution and is believed to be residing in Haiti.
- Allonce abandoned the young daughter he had with Michel, leaving the girl without any parents while her mother remains incarcerated pending trial.
OIG Fugitive: Tarek Wehbe
- Between January 2002 and January 2007, Wehbe, a physician, allegedly submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance carriers in order to obtain reimbursement for services that were either not provided, medically unnecessary, and/or over-charged.
- Wehbe allegedly perpetrated this fraud through the Renaissance Medical Group (RMG), based in Providence, Rhode Island, of which Wehbe was the president and owner. Health insurance carriers reimbursed RMG over $1.8 million by either depositing payments into RMG's bank account or sending reimbursement checks to RMG through the mail .
- These funds were deposited into and transferred between Wehbe's personal bank accounts and those of RMG, which he controlled. Wehbe allegedly laundered money through an account in a foreign country.
- Also, on more than 100 occasions, Wehbe allegedly issued prescriptions for controlled substances, such as Oxycodone and Hydrocodone, without medical justification.
OIG Fugitives: “The Benitez Brothers”:
Carlos Benitez, Luis Benitez, Jose Benitez
- Carlos, Luis, and Jose Benitez, commonly referred to as the Benitez brothers, allegedly schemed to submit false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, pocketing approximately $110 million from Medicare, according to a Federal indictment.
- The Benitez brothers owned and directed a string of medical clinics in the Miami area, purportedly providing infusion treatments to HIV-infected Medicare beneficiaries. But the medication the brothers provided to patients either was allegedly medically unnecessary or was never actually administered.
- The brothers allegedly paid kickbacks to patients in exchange for the patients’ Medicare information, which they then used to submit false claims to the Federal Government for reimbursement.
- More than 20 co-conspirators of the Benitez brothers have been charged in the Southern District of Florida with involvement in the HIV-infusion conspiracy. Most of them have pleaded guilty or have been convicted by a jury. A physician involved in the conspiracy was sentenced to a record-setting 30 years in prison.
OIG Fugitive: Susan Bendigo
- Along with her co-conspirators, Susan Bendigo, who was born in the Philippines, is accused in a Federal indictment of billing Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, for $17.1 million, collecting $10 million, about half of which came from the claims she submitted for services she provided with unlicensed staff.
- A registered nurse, Bendigo was director of nursing for a company that provided nurses for home health agencies. Investigators say that from May 2004 through May 2007, she sent unlicensed nurses to treat patients under Medi-Cal, even though she knew that Medi-Cal required licensed nurses to perform the work.
OIG Fugitive: Leonard Nwafor
- Through his durable medical equipment (DME) company, Pacific City Medical Equipment, Nwafor and his co-conspirators billed Medicare for $1.1 million and collected $525,000 in fraudulent claims for equipment such as motorized wheelchairs, scooters, and hospital beds for beneficiaries, according to a Federal indictment.
- Based in the Los Angeles area, Nwafor used physicians’ Unique Provider Identification Numbers to bill Medicare for the equipment, even though those doctors did not examine Nwafor’s clients.
- OIG investigated Nwafor as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which was created to identify and prosecute fraudulent Medicare Fraud companies and laboratories in the Greater Los Angeles area.
- In the fall of 2008, a jury convicted Nwafor of conspiracy and health care fraud. He was to be sentenced in January 2009, but failed to show up in court. In March 2010, he was sentenced in absentia to 9 years in Federal prison and ordered to pay back more than $525,000 to Medicare.
OIG Fugitive: Eduardo Moreno
- According to an April 2007 Federal indictment, Eduardo Moreno allegedly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Medicare program, submitting false and fraudulent claims for durable medical equipment (DME) “and related health care benefits, items and services” that were medically unnecessary.
- Moreno used a “straw owner” and other methods to hide the money and property he obtained through these fraudulent schemes, the indictment alleged. (A straw owner is an individual who maintains the appearance of owning property in order to disguise the identity of the real owner.)
- He was arrested by the Miami Police Department on an open warrant. He failed to appear in court and his current whereabouts are unknown.
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