The U.S. Department of Justice announced a series of major fraud enforcement actions this week, highlighting convictions, guilty pleas, indictments, and prison sentences tied to schemes involving more than $1 billion in fraudulent activity.
The Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said prosecutors across the country targeted health care fraud, pandemic relief fraud, tax crimes, and theft involving federal benefit programs.
Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald said the recent actions reflect the department’s intensified effort to combat fraud against taxpayers.
“In the past week, prosecutors throughout the Department secured trial convictions of multiple defendants who ran fraud schemes totaling over a billion dollars,” McDonald said.
Among the largest cases, a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida convicted the founder and owner of HealthSplash for operating a platform that generated fraudulent doctors’ orders and prescriptions used to bill Medicare and other federal health programs for unnecessary medical equipment. Prosecutors said the scheme billed more than $1 billion.
Federal authorities also announced multiple cases tied to pandemic-era assistance programs. A tax preparer was convicted for orchestrating an unemployment fraud scheme that obtained more than $11 million in fraudulent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits. In Boston, a former employee of the U.S. Department of Labor pleaded guilty to fraudulently receiving more than $40,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits.
In Florida, a federal judge sentenced a defendant to more than five years in prison for submitting a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan application and ordered forfeiture of nearly $740,000.
Other benefit fraud cases included a Massachusetts woman who admitted improperly receiving Social Security disability payments after failing to report household income changes, and a New York indictment accusing a woman of concealing her aunt’s death to continue collecting Social Security and pension benefits. Prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of more than $75,000 in that case.
Health care fraud prosecutions also included charges against a podiatrist and two nurses accused of submitting fraudulent Medicare claims for skin substitute services, resulting in approximately $29 million in payments.
The department additionally announced the arraignment of a Danish researcher identified as a top fugitive by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. Prosecutors allege the defendant stole more than $1 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant funds through fraudulent documentation submitted to Danish authorities and a hospital involved in CDC-funded research.
Tax fraud enforcement actions included a guilty plea from the founder and CEO of a Hong Kong financial services company accused of helping U.S. clients conceal more than $60 million in offshore income and assets to evade taxes.
Separately, a Tennessee attorney pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns that failed to report millions of dollars in income from cryptocurrency sales and consulting work, resulting in a tax loss exceeding $550,000.
The Justice Department said the actions are part of the recently created National Fraud Enforcement Division, announced April 7. The division supports President Donald Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance, which focuses on fraud, waste, and abuse in federal programs.
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