The Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division wrapped up its second consecutive week of sweeping enforcement activity, with prosecutors across the country securing convictions, guilty pleas, and indictments tied to schemes totaling more than $1 billion.
The centerpiece of the week's actions was a jury verdict in the Southern District of Florida against the founder and owner of HealthSplash, a health care software company whose platform was used to generate fabricated doctors' orders and prescriptions. The scheme defrauded Medicare and other federal health benefit programs of more than $1 billion through claims for unnecessary medical equipment.
"In the past week, prosecutors throughout the Department secured trial convictions of multiple defendants who ran fraud schemes totaling over a billion dollars," said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. "I am proud of the fearless men and women of the Fraud Division who are fighting to protect the American people and hold fraudsters accountable."
The sweep also captured a range of benefit program abuses.
An Illinois tax preparer was found guilty of running a scheme that drained more than $11 million from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program through fraudulent claims; a former Department of Labor employee in Boston admitted to pocketing over $40,000 in pandemic unemployment funds he was not entitled to; and a Florida man received a 63-month federal prison sentence for submitting a bogus Paycheck Protection Program loan application, with the court ordering forfeiture of nearly $740,000.
A grand jury in the Middle District of Florida also returned an indictment against a woman accused of hiding her aunt's death to keep collecting Social Security and City of New York pension payments that were no longer owed. The indictment seeks forfeiture of more than $75,000.
In Massachusetts, a separate guilty plea came from a woman who failed to report that her husband — whose earnings exceeded program thresholds — had joined the household, allowing her to fraudulently continue receiving Social Security disability payments.
On the health care side, a Utah podiatrist and two nurses face federal charges for allegedly billing Medicare $29 million for skin substitute services that were falsely documented.
International dimensions featured in both tax and government fraud cases. A Danish researcher described as one of HHS-OIG's ten most wanted fugitives was arraigned on wire fraud and money laundering charges after being extradited from Germany. The defendant is accused of stealing more than $1 million in CDC grant funding by submitting fabricated documents to a Danish hospital and the Danish government.
A Hong Kong-based financial executive pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to helping wealthy American clients hide more than $60 million in offshore accounts and avoid paying taxes on those assets. In Tennessee, a licensed attorney admitted to filing false returns that concealed millions in income from cryptocurrency sales and consulting fees, resulting in a tax loss exceeding $550,000.
The National Fraud Enforcement Division was formally stood up on April 7 as part of President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a government-wide initiative chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance targeting fraud, waste, and abuse in federal benefit programs.
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