Feds: Cuban exiles made millions in false Medicare claims, then left Miami [View All]

[seafan]

Feds: Cuban exiles made millions in false Medicare claims, then left Miami

David Adams | St. Petersburg Times Latin America Correspondent
Originally published 08:31 a.m., March 1, 2009

MIAMI — Eduardo Moreno came to Miami from Cuba in 1997 with nothing.
But a decade later the 40-year-old repairman owned a half-million-dollar home and bought his paramour a $106,000 second-hand Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Was he living the American Dream?

Hardly.

Instead, federal agents say Moreno's wealth was the product of a perplexing criminal phenomenon sweeping South Florida: multimillion-dollar Medicare fraud perpetrated by Cuban-American exiles.
Even more troubling, many jump bail and flee the country rather than face trial. Often they end up right back in Cuba, out of reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Dozens of Cuban-Americans accused of bilking the government for as much as $1 billion, were identified in court records by a Miami Herald investigation. One group used 85 phony medical equipment companies to file $420 million in fraudulent Medicare claims. Some 36 accused scam artists had fled to avoid prosecution, absconding with $142 million.

At least 18 — probably more — are believed to be in Cuba with others in Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
"It's very frustrating for us. We'd pick them up and then we saw them bonding out and leaving the country," said Randall Culp, head of a health care fraud squad at the FBI's Miami office.
Most of the accused Cubans left the island in the 1990s as political refugees. "No one thought they were a flight risk," Culp said.

Medicare investigators began to notice a sharp increase in billing about five years ago, especially from "drug infusion" clinics providing intravenous medication for HIV patients.
"The numbers didn't jibe with our AIDS population," said Timothy Donovan, a senior Miami FBI agent in charge of white-collar crime. Agents calculate the infusion fraud alone accounted for about $1.5 billion.
An unusual number of Cuban-Americans showed up in their investigations. Among them was a former model, Leonardo Bolaños, 42, who allegedly operated two clinics on Miami Beach that racked up $5.2 million in claims in barely six months.
"It was a huge, huge scam," said Claudia Franco, director of the Miami office of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that manages those health care programs. "They simply billed for services that were never rendered."
But before he could be arrested, Bolaños disappeared. FBI officials tracked him down in Canada and are seeking his extradition.

Soon after the crackdown began on drug infusions, investigators saw a spike in billing for medical equipment supplies, from wheelchairs to neck and knee braces. That's when they came across Moreno.
A Medicare inspector noticed he filed claims totalling $2.3 million in two months in late 2006 from one office he ran. In four cases the beneficiaries were dead. At the same time he filed $1.2 million in claims from another office, Faster Medical Equipment. The address turned out to be an unfurnished 6--by-6-foot "utility closet," containing buckets of sand, road tar and a wrench.
Moreno was arrested in April. Days later a judge ordered him to surrender his U.S. passport and set bail at $450,000. He bonded out and travel records indicate Moreno used his Cuban passport to return to Cuba, agents say.

The United States does not have an extradition agreement with Cuba, making the retrieval of wanted criminals especially hard. The accused Medicare fraudsters also enjoy the benefit of dual citizenship, affording them protection under Cuban law.

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Let's not forget:


Jeb Bush and his buddy Miguel Recarey know about Medicare fraud in Florida.