National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results In 324 Defendants Charged In Connection With Over $14.6 Billion In Alleged Fraud

Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office Instrumental in Recovering Stolen Funds; Cheshire Nurse Charged with Offenses Related to Selling Prescriptions

The Justice Department today announced the results of its 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which resulted in criminal charges against 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General’s Offices across the United States, for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes involving over $14.6 billion in intended loss. The Takedown involved federal and state law enforcement agencies across the country and represents an unprecedented effort to combat health care fraud schemes that exploit patients and taxpayers.

Demonstrating the significant return on investment that results from health care fraud enforcement efforts, the government seized over $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other assets as part of the coordinated enforcement efforts. As part of the whole-of-government approach to combating health care fraud announced today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also announced that it successfully prevented over $4 billion from being paid in response to false and fraudulent claims and that it suspended or revoked the billing privileges of 205 providers in the months leading up to the Takedown. Civil charges against 20 defendants for $14.2 million in alleged fraud, as well as civil settlements with 106 defendants totaling $34.3 million, were also announced as part of the Takedown.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut contributed significantly to an investigation dubbed “Operation Gold Rush”.  As alleged in the forfeiture complaint, a transnational criminal organization based in Russia and elsewhere used straw purchasers to buy small durable medical equipment (DME) companies located in the U.S.  After acquiring the companies and their billing information, they used stolen Medicare patient information to bill Medicare for billions of dollars of DME that was not provided.  The forfeiture action stemmed from an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Marshals Service into health care fraud from a company named Medical Home Care, based in Bethel, Connecticut.  After it was purchased for $400,000 by a company operated by a Czech national in March 2023, Medical Home Care submitted more than $152,000 in fraudulent claims to Medicare and other organizations.  Money from Medical Home Care was sent to Malaysia and Hong Kong.  As the investigation expanded, 28 bank accounts associated with a variety of companies and containing more than $17 million were seized by law enforcement.  The civil forfeiture proceeding is being prosecuted by Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section Trial Attorneys Emily Cohen and Chelsea Rooney, and by Assistant U.S. Attorney David C. Nelson of the District of Connecticut…