WASHINGTON — Hundreds were charged Monday in connection with $14.6 billion worth of health care fraud schemes that included supplying millions of opioid pills to drug dealers and giving elderly patients on hospice care “unnecessary” wound grafts, the Department of Justice announced.
The operation, which the department called the largest health care fraud takedown in its history, collared 324 defendants, including members of transnational criminal groups and American doctors and pharmacists.
The sick schemes caused an actual loss to the federal coffers of about $2.9 billion, officials said, with the feds also seizing as much as $245 million “in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other assets” in the sweeping crackdown.
“Make no mistake — this administration will not tolerate criminals who line their pockets with taxpayer dollars while endangering the health and safety of our communities,” Attorney General Pam Bondi added.
DOJ Criminal Division head Matthew Galeotti said some of the ill-gotten gains came at the cost of exacerbating the nation’s opioid epidemic and harming those fighting against drug addiction.
One scheme involved the trafficking of more than 15 million prescription opioid pills — including oxycodone, hydrocodone and carisoprodol — from pharmacists to street drug dealers to users.
“Health care fraud isn’t just theft — it’s trafficking in trust. Today’s announcement shows that when doctors become drug dealers and treatment centers become profit-driven fraud rings, [the Drug Enforcement Administration] will act,” said Acting DEA Administrator Robert Murphy.
Many of the opioid busts occurred in Texas, where some of the defendants were accused of operating more than a dozen “front” pharmacies to move the prescription drugs onto Houston’s streets or other black markets.
In one case, a doctor and nurse opened a “pill mill” disguised as a clinic to sell oxycodone and hydrocodone prescriptions to drug dealers for cash.
Dr. Maryam “Meg” Qayum — who authorities say had the prescriptions filled at “complicit” pharmacies — ended up writing scripts for more than 3 million pills between May 2022 and June 2025, including a risky combination of hydrocodone and carisoprodol known as a “Las Vegas Cocktail,” prosecutors said.
Another scheme involved Arizona-based defendants conspiring to take $1 billion from Medicare recipients by pressuring them to undergo amniotic wound allografts, in some cases when the procedure was “unnecessary” since the patients were in hospice and just days or weeks from death.
“[M]edically untrained sales representatives” pushed for the skin grafts whenever they spotted “superficial wounds” on terminally ill senior patients in Arizona, according to the DOJ.
Arizona co-defendants Tyler Kontos, 29, Joel Kupetz, 36, and Jorge Kinds, 49, were all charged with submitting $1 billion in fraudulent claims — of which $600 million was paid before the feds pulled the plug.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Post that the crackdown appeared to be politically motivated, as President Trump has asked Republicans to root out “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicaid through his “big, beautiful bill” working its way through Congress.
Most of the bogus medical claims — worth around $10.6 billion — were submitted to Medicare by transnational crime organizations who bought up dozens of medical supply firms with the help of straw owners based overseas and needlessly purchased urinary catheters and other medical equipment.
The proceeds were then laundered through cryptocurrency exchanges, foreign shell companies and banks based in Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, China and Singapore.
The plot also involved the theft of more than 1 million Americans’ identities nationwide to submit the claims.
At least 12 culprits were arrested for participating in the scheme, dubbed “Operation Gold Rush” by the DOJ, four of whom were apprehended in Estonia and seven of whom were taken at US ports of entry.
Less than $42 million in fraudulent claims were paid out before the scheme was halted by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Additionally, a Pakistan-United Arab Emirates national owned a billing company, ProMD, that tried to charge Medicaid treatment center owners in Arizona roughly $650 million for alcohol and drug abuse services.
The treatments were often low-quality or not provided at all — and center owners allegedly paid kickbacks for patients “recruited from the homeless population and Native American reservations,” DOJ officials said.
The owner of the billing company, Farrukh Jarar Ali, 41, nabbed at least $24.5 million and used the money to buy a $2.9 million home at a golf club in Dubai before the feds charged him with wire fraud and money laundering.
Genetic testing and telemedicine fraud also bilked taxpayers contributing to Medicare programs by more than $1.1 billion.
Scores of other defendants bilked Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers in schemes amounting to $1.84 billion in false claims for medical testing, treatments and visits that involved alleged kickbacks and bribes.
“These criminals didn’t just steal someone else’s money. They stole from you,” Galeotti told reporters Monday.
“Every fraudulent claim, every fake billing, every kickback scheme represents money taken directly from the pockets of American taxpayers who fund these essential programs through their hard work and sacrifice.”
