State sanctioned Russian mob ran $1B Medicare scam out of New York, compromised 1M medical records: Feds
A quiet Brooklyn storefront served as a key part of a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme led by the Russian mob, a federal indictment charges — and could even have been backed by the Kremlin.The scheme was so brazen, one medical supply company linked to the outfit submitted bills totaling over $250 million for urinary catheters in 2023 alone, according to the feds.The number was so large it amounted to $50 million more than the combined spend of every other medical provider in the country on catheters that year.The scam started in 2022 when a Russia-based transnational criminal organization bought up over 30 medical supply companies across the US — from California to Texas to Chicago — which were already enrolled in Medicare, according to the indictment.The organization then recruited young men, primarily from Russia and Estonia, and sent them to the US to act as straw owners of the companies.The fraudsters then indiscriminately began blanket billing Medicare for supply reimbursements, mostly urinary catheters, using the stolen credentials of 7,000 physicians and over a million Medicare recipients, feds allege.Thousands of bills originated from G&I Ortho Supply in Gravesend, Brooklyn, and were sent on behalf of Medicare customers across the country.It is one of two addresses in the borough the gang operated from, the other hasn’t been revealed.The crime syndicate made $10.6 billion in fraudulent claims in total, according to prosecutors.
They were paid $941 million, which the gang are charged with promptly laundering through China, Israel, Pakistan, Singapore and Turkey.While some of the hired patsies have been caught and prosecuted, a recently unsealed superseding indictment is short on details of who was running the scheme, beyond they are believed to have operated from outside the US.Experts are convinced the scheme goes to the top of Russian society.“These are big numbers. I don’t see how you become a John Gotti in Russia without the government ...