WASHINGTON (TNND) — Federal authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of multiple people in Southern California in connection with a massive healthcare fraud takedown targeting sham hospice facilities.
The defendants allegedly cheated Medicare out of millions of dollars. Called ‘Operation Never Say Die,’ Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media, the fraudsters stole over $50 million from Americans.
We need to get serious and we don’t see that happening in California. The ecosystem is rotten. We’ve uncovered lots of other derivatives that happen when you don’t take care of this problem in the way it needs to be done,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid.
Two of the people arrested, Gladwin and Amelou Gill, are accused of creating a hospice in their daughter’s name and allegedly swindling over $7 million from taxpayers.
It’s all total fraudulent hospice services. They were signing out people who were not terminally ill. They were forging the documents, the medical records,” U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli told Fox News Thursday.
Citing multiple HHS officials, investigative journalist Christopher Rufo with City Journal reported that California’s fraud rate is about 25%, or $50 billion of the state’s total Medicaid budget. Which, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, is right around $200 billion. The estimate is more than 29 states spend in a year.
Every criminal group saw that Gavin Newsom was opening the floodgates of state spending. They could take whatever they wanted and he’s losing now an estimated, up to $50 billion a year to fraud,” Rufo told Fox Business.
The bust also happened shortly after independent journalist James O’Keefe announced that the Justice Department is conducting witness testimonies with his team, who recorded alleged election fraud along Skid Row in Los Angeles.
It appears based upon this development, we may finally see some arrests and accountability in this clear cut case,” O’Keefe said in a social media video this week.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The National News Desk that he believes Thursday’s arrests could be a sign of what’s to come.
You have individuals high up in the DOJ including our First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli here in in LA, saying this is going to be a big priority for the DOJ. I expect to see more charges and indictments soon,” Rahmani said.
Rahmani added, whenever the law and politics intersect in a certain way, you can expect action.
You’re going to get a lot of federal government resources in terms of agents and prosecutors investigating these types of cases,” said Rahmani.
In response to the enforcement, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office wrote on ‘X,’ “Glad the federal government is finally stepping up to do their part. The state has been taking action for years, including suspending 280+ licenses & banning new licenses since 2022. Big question: Will Trump pardon any of them like he’s done for so many fraudsters before?”
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The anti-fraud task force also recently revealed that a total of 221 hospice providers in LA have been suspended so far due to suspected fraud.