Atalier Moncho Avila

On December 6, 2012, Atalier Moncho Avila was sentenced to 2 years in prison and ordered to pay $894,959 in restitution after pleading guilty to health care fraud. Moncho Avila was arrested at Miami International Airport July 28, 2012 after arriving from Havana, Cuba.

In March 2009, Moncho Avila was indicted on charges of health care fraud. Investigators believe that he billed Medicare more than $1.5 million for the cost of durable medical equipment (DME) items and services that were not prescribed by doctors or provided as claimed.

Beginning around April 2008, Moncho Avila controlled and operated Southernmost Medical Supply, Inc. (Southernmost), a Florida-based company that purportedly provided DME equipment to Medicare beneficiaries. Moncho Avila was also listed as the sole signatory authority for Southernmost's corporate bank account.

According to the indictment, Moncho Avila allegedly submitted, or caused the submission of, numerous false and fraudulent claims to Medicare on behalf of Southernmost, seeking reimbursement for DME items that either were not prescribed or were not provided as claimed. As a result of these submissions, Medicare deposited nearly $900,000 in reimbursements into Southernmost's corporate bank account. Moncho Avila then allegedly transferred and disbursed funds from Southernmost's corporate bank account to himself and others.