About 450 defendants were charged in a record-setting crackdown on Medicaid and hospice care fraud schemes, officials said.
By Catholics for Catholics
The Justice Department charged about 450 defendants for several healthcare fraud ploys that amounted to more than $6.5 billion.
Unveiled at a press conference in Washington, the charges are against defendants for a variety of plots in what officials called a record-setting action against fraud, according to a story by The Epoch Times.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the charges arose from a “new era” of investigating fraud.
Officials cited an $89 million healthcare fraud conspiracy where a man was accused of billing insurers for medically needless cardiovascular tests entangling college athletes.
The man then supposedly rubber-stamped the results as ordinary without going over them.
In another case, according to Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, he cited a situation in Nevada where a nurse practitioner allegedly pilfered Medicaid for nearly $1 billion in skin substitute allografts. Ferguson said the nurse was performing the allografts on elderly, vulnerable people in hospices and nursing homes and then submitting the claims.
“She was using human beings, American citizens, as living piggy banks,” Ferguson said.
.@DAGToddBlanche announces charges against 455 defendants across 45 states and territories for healthcare fraud schemes involving over $6.5 billion in false claims submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. pic.twitter.com/ofeHhUAbmX
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 23, 2026
The government seized $865,000 in necklaces and a $500,000 Ferrari that the nurse practitioner bought with her fraudulent earnings, according to Ferguson.
Ferguson said that five years ago Medicare was paying out less than $1 billion for skin substitutes via allografts. In 2025, the payments had increased to almost $15 billion to programs that Ferguson said were “riddled with fraud.”
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which is chaired by Vice President JD Vance and has promised to target rampant fraud.
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