DOJ shares results from 14-day nationwide healthcare fraud crackdown

The Department of Justice announced Tuesday the results of a two-week effort to crack down on fraud across the country, in what it's calling the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown. The focus has been to find and arrest people who stole billions in taxpayer dollars. Through healthcare schemes. Submitting claims for services never provided. “We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using healthcare as a front to steal from the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “As today’s cases and arrests show, there is no case too big, no scheme too complex, and no hiding place too remote for our relentless fraud-fighting team. Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison.” In one example, the FBI called Ibrahim Khaldoon Hilmi the "mastermind" of one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in U.S. history. “Mr. Hilmi was arrested after perpetrating a multi-billion dollar fraud in Turkey, apprehended and transferred back to the United States of America, where he will face prosecution," said FBI Director Kash Patel. The arrest marks part of a much larger fraud crackdown by the White House. According to the Justice Department, in the last 14 days, 455 defendants have been charged across 45 states for fraud schemes involving more than $6.5 billion. Top Trump Administration officials say the scams included government repayments in Medicare and Medicaid dollars for the ordering of medically unnecessary tests, prescribing products the patients did not need and performing tests like echocardiograms that gave bad results, as in the case of Kaiden Francis. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, spoke about his case. “The parents who had been marketed to claiming their kid might be at risk were therefore told the kid was fine, when in fact nothing had been done. The EKG was read as normal. The kid was dead a month later.” READ MORE: https://13wham.com/news/nation-world/... _______________ Stay up to date with our social media: 13 WHAM on Facebook:   / 13wham   13 WHAM on Twitter:   / 13wham   13WHAM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/13whamtv/?h... 13WHAM on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@13wham?lang=en 13 WHAM Daily Local News Digest:    • 13WHAM Local News Digest   For more information, visit https://13wham.com/ Have a news tip? Send it directly to us: Email us: [email protected] Call the Newsroom: (585) 334-8700 WHAM is a NY based station and a ABC Television affiliate owned and operated by Deerfield Media, Inc and receives certain services from an affiliation of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the country today. #13WHAM #News #Rochester #NewYork