Exclusive | Fraudsters lured homeless addicts to California with free flights, groceries and more: feds

Brazen fraudsters accused in a $1.6 billion phony rehab scheme used “body brokers” who offered free plane tickets, groceries and more to lure at least 6,000 homeless junkies from around the US to their detoxes in California, according to court papers and prosecutors.Los Angeles rehab king David Young, 71, and his son Nathan Young, 39, allegedly operated a $1.6 billion substance abuse scam to traffic addicts from around the country to dozens of California rehab centers, according to Department of Justice prosecutors.The Youngs directed “body brokers,” including Greenville, Texas couple Honey and Cody Phipps, aged 42 and 36, to mercilessly target homeless addicts, recycling them through their drug facilities and getting them fat insurance policies so they could collect the cash.The defendants pocketed more than $210 million in the six-year scheme that Assistant Attorney General Colin M.McDonald called “the largest the largest sober home fraud scheme the Department has ever prosecuted.”All four were arrested in the sweeping anti-healthcare fraud investigation in California that federal authorities unveiled in Los Angeles on Thursday.To execute the complex con, the Youngs ordered the Phipps and other body brokers to travel to various states to find homeless addicts, get them insured and enroll them at the Youngs’ rehabs in LA, San Diego, the Bay Area and elsewhere, court papers say.Credit card records showed that victims were flown in from Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Birmingham, Ala., to the Youngs’ rehabs such as Rodeo Recovery, Get Real Recovery and others.The body brokers offered kickbacks for junkies to enroll at their rehabs “including money, drugs, free airline flights, free or nearly-free accommodations at highly desirable locations, including luxury apartments and houses” in Los Angeles, according to prosecutors.In some cases, victims were coached “to fabricate and exaggerate their symptoms and substance addictions during intake,” or encou...