U.S. federal prosecutors on Friday charged 11 people with involvement in a Russia-based scheme to defraud the Medicare health insurance program, including $10.6 billion in claims through fraudulent invoices for medical devices and equipment.
Prosecutors said the "transnational criminal organization" orchestrated a health care fraud and money laundering scheme that could have generated billions of dollars by purchasing dozens of medical device and equipment companies from legitimate owners.
Prosecutors said in the filing that the defendants stole the personal information of more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries and used it to submit billions of dollars in claims against Medicare and its contracted insurers.
The claims were made through medical equipment companies the group purchased, but the equipment was never shipped.
The court document stated that "from approximately August 2022 through September 2024, the defendants... submitted fraudulent claims for approximately $10.6 billion in durable medical equipment." Of these claims, Medicare paid approximately $41 million, while its contractors paid approximately $900 million.
Officials said that Imam Nimatullah, a Russian resident, orchestrated the scheme and managed the affairs of the other defendants, who were based in Estonia, the Czech Republic, and the United States.
The indictment stated that the fraud was uncovered after "hundreds of thousands of Americans reported concerns to Medicare and its contractors after receiving clarifications on benefit forms claiming they had received" equipment they had not requested or received.
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