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Catch of the Week

This archive includes posts from our “Catch of the Week” series, in which the Whistleblower Insider blog highlights particular government enforcement actions.  Return to:

Page 5 of 30

Catch of the Week: Dozens of Fraudsters Sentenced in Multimillion Dollar Compounding Pharmacy Fraud

Posted  04/30/21
compounding pharmacy drugs
On Thursday, an Alabama District Court Judge sentenced dozens of defendants to prison for participating in a massive conspiracy to swindle insurers for medically unnecessary compound drugs. The defendants included company executives and managers, a prescriber, billers, and sales representatives associated with Northside Pharmacy, which was doing business as Global Compounding Pharmacy (Global). According to the DOJ...

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Catch of the Week, Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medical Billing Fraud, Pharma Fraud, Whistleblower Case,

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Catch of the Week: Final Merida Hospice Fraudster Sentenced in $150 Million Scheme

Posted  04/23/21
Hands in handcuffs behind back of white man in business suit
Jose Garza, the former operations manager of Merida Group, a Texas-based hospice, and home health chain, just landed a 27-month prison sentence for his role in a $150 million hospice fraud scheme. Garza is the latest to receive a sentence in connection with the decade-long Merida Group scheme, which saw people with long-term illnesses falsely told they would die soon, while executives at the company pocketed millions...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Criminal Proceedings, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice,

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Catch of the Week: Telemarketer Gets 10 Years in $3.3 Million Telemedicine and Genetic Testing Fraud Scheme

Posted  04/16/21
female looking through a lab telescope
Ivan Andre Scott, a 36-year-old Florida man, just landed a 10-year prison sentence for organizing a $3.3 million Medicare fraud scheme involving two of the hottest healthcare trends – telemedicine and genetic testing to assess the likelihood of future cancer. The conspiracy targeted vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries for pricey cancer screening genetic tests, prosecutors said. Claims for these tests were falsely...

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Catch of the Week, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Laboratory and IDTF, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medicare,

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Catch of the Week: Fraud Behind the Silver Screen

Posted  04/9/21
Canisters of movie film rolled out
This week the SEC announced that it obtained an emergency asset freeze in an enforcement action against L.A.-based actor Zachary Horwitz and his company 1nMM Capital, LLC for allegedly running a $690 million Ponzi scheme.  In its complaint, the SEC claimed Horowitz’s recent actions threatened to dissipate the remaining investor funds in his possession. While this story is still technically “mid-catch,” the...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Financial and Investment Fraud, Ponzi Schemes,

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Bristol-Myers Squibb Settlement Highlights a Common-Sense Law: The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program

Posted  04/2/21
Drug prices are out of control.  They now account for roughly 10% of our healthcare spending and America’s per capita outlay has nearly doubled over the past two decades.  For the least fortunate among us, many of these medications have become out of reach altogether. While new proposals are regularly made, one approach that often gets overlooked is simply enforcing the laws already on the books. That is just...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Drug and DME Pricing, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Pharma Fraud, Whistleblower Case,

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CFTC Clobbers Cryptocurrency Con Man

Posted  04/1/21
cryptocurrency scam
Last week, the CFTC announced that a federal court entered a nearly $600 million default judgment against a British man who used bitcoin to defraud more than 1,000 people worldwide.  The judgment is yet another indication that the CFTC will vigorously police cryptocurrency fraud.

The Scam

The CFTC filed a complaint against Benjamin Reynolds and his bitcoin trading and investment company, Control-Finance, back in...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Cryptocurrency, Financial and Investment Fraud, Fraud in CFTC-Regulated Markets, Ponzi Schemes,

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Catch of the Week: Founders of Poop-Testing Startup uBiome Face Fraud Charges

Posted  03/24/21
specimen jar
San Francisco-based uBiome and its founders Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte claimed they were “inventing the microbiome industry” and “making products that improve people’s lives.” Once considered a Silicon Valley success story, today, uBiome is bankrupt and its founders face various federal securities fraud and related criminal conspiracy charges. The biotech startup sold home medical tests including...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Criminal Proceedings, Improper Medical Facility, Medical Billing Fraud, Securities Fraud,

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COVID Frauds of the Week: DOJ Continues to Crack Down on PPP Fraudsters

Posted  03/19/21
ponzi scheme vs pyramid scheme
As of this week, the Small Business Administration has disbursed over $700 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to small businesses and non-profits. There are over $100 billion in remaining appropriations, with additional appropriations likely to follow thereafter. With numbers like these, the program has become a magnet for fraudsters seeking to profit from the pandemic. The DOJ has been actively going...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, COVID-19, Financial and Investment Fraud, Financial Institution Fraud, Government Programs Fraud, Money Laundering,

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Catch of the Week: Unnecessary Blood Flow Tests Led to Unnecessary Flow of Healthcare Dollars

Posted  03/19/21
Doctor in handcuffs holding a stethoscope
Healthcare fraudsters routinely look for ways to extract money from federal health programs in ways that raise the least suspicion of their actions.  One of these methods is through unnecessary diagnostic testing, which can often be lucrative when conducted routinely on large groups of patients. This week we focus on a recent settlement with Dr. Dinesh Shah and Michigan Physicians Group, P.C. (“MPG”) for $2...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Lack of Medical Necessity, Whistleblower Case,

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Catch of the Week: The Long Tail of an Infamous Ponzi Scheme

Posted  02/26/21
gavel with handcuffs and money scattered around
In 2012, R. Allen Stanford, former head of Stanford International Bank (SIB), was sentenced to 110 years’ imprisonment for masterminding a massive Ponzi scheme through which he misappropriated $7 billion from bank customers.  That scheme had been running for twenty years when it was shut down in 2009. Now, in February 2021, ten years after Stanford’s conviction and thirty years after his scheme began, the...

Tagged in: Catch of the Week, Financial and Investment Fraud, Ponzi Schemes,

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