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Feds & CMS Bust 24 in Medicare Fraud

by Barbara Kram, Editor | May 15, 2007

Other indictments brought by the Strike Force outline various types of fraudulent schemes. In one case, defendant Eduardo Moreno, the owner of multiple DME companies, was arrested on April 7 after being named in a six-count fraud indictment. Two of Moreno's companies - Brenda Medical Supply, Inc., and Faster Medical Equipment, Inc. - allegedly billed Medicare for more than $1.9 million for services that were not medically necessary. The FBI has seized of some of Moreno's assets, including a new Rolls Royce Phantom worth approximately $200,000.

In another indictment, Barbara Diaz and Jose Prieto were charged with conspiring to defraud Medicare, submitting false claims to Medicare and money laundering. The indictment further alleges that Diaz and Prieto engaged in an infusion therapy scheme, where patients did not need the drugs that were purportedly used. From March 9 through December 31, 2006, the defendants billed Medicare for over $900,000 for infusion.

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Seizure warrants have been used to take money back from bank accounts associated with the health care fraud activity alleged in the indictments. In one case, agents recovered more than $1.2 million from a corporate bank account after arresting Leider Alexis Munoz, the president and chief executive officer of RTC of Miami, Inc., an infusion clinic located in Hialeah, Florida.

The strike force teams are led by a federal prosecutor supervised by both the Criminal Division's Fraud Section in Washington and the office of U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of the Southern District of Florida. Each team has four to six agents, at least one agent from the FBI and HHS Office of Inspector General, as well as representatives of local law enforcement. The teams operate out of the federal Health Care Fraud Facility in Miramar, Florida.

Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The operation is being prosecuted by attorneys from the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and the Major Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. In addition to federal agents, the teams have officers and detectives from the Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and Hialeah Police Department.

The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, Leslie V. Norwalk, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Melody Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Atlanta Regional Office,