{"id":391371,"date":"2026-04-10T09:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391371\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T09:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:24:07","slug":"california-files-felony-charges-against-21-people-in-alleged-267m-hospice-fraud-scheme-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391371\/","title":{"rendered":"California files felony charges against 21 people in alleged $267m hospice fraud scheme | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

California<\/a> authorities have filed<\/a> felony charges against 21 people, who they say orchestrated a hospice fraud scheme that cost the state $267m, the state\u2019s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The suspects allegedly bought personal identifying information for non-California residents from the dark web and used the stolen identities to enroll in Medi-Cal, a state program that gives low-income residents free or low-cost health care.<\/p>\n

State officials accused the individuals of purchasing 14 hospice companies and billing Medi-Cal for nonexistent hospice services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe so-called patients were healthy, out of state and completely unaware that they had been enrolled in hospice care,\u201d Bonta said in a Thursday press conference. \u201cThis was a brazen, calculated criminal scheme that exploited the Medi-Cal system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 21 individuals are facing healthcare fraud, money laundering and identity theft charges, which carry possible prison sentences ranging from 10 to 16 years.<\/p>\n

So far, $30m has been recovered and five suspects have been arrested in southern California, according to Bonta.<\/p>\n

Government fraud has been a hot-button political issue, particularly among Republicans, who have sought to portray blue states as apathetic to the issue.<\/p>\n

In December, Donald Trump cited a child welfare fraud scandal<\/a> in Minnesota as part of his administration\u2019s reasoning for aggressive immigration raids in the state. Several suspects in the alleged fraud scheme belonged to the state\u2019s Somali diaspora.<\/p>\n

Last week<\/a>, in a social media post<\/a>, Trump singled out other Democratic-led states including California, Illinois, New York and Maine as places where there is an \u201cunprecedented theft of taxpayer money\u201d, although he did not offer evidence to substantiate the claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaids have already started in L.A.,\u201d Trump wrote. The day before his post, the California department of justice had announced the arrest of eight individuals in separate healthcare fraud cases.<\/p>\n

At the Thursday press conference, Bonta addressed the ongoing discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile healthcare fraud might be President Trump\u2019s shiny new political talking point. [The] California [department of justice] has been going after healthcare fraud since 1979 \u2013 for decades. Trump is late to the party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California authorities have filed felony charges against 21 people, who they say orchestrated a hospice fraud scheme that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-391371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}