eight individuals<\/a> in the Los Angeles area were arrested in a $50 million hospice fraud operation.<\/p>\nPresident Donald Trump has made combatting fraud a central part of his second term, with a particular focus on rooting out the problem in Democrat-led states, such as Minnesota and California.<\/p>\n
![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/129e7e0ade4cfd557bd82f05124cfd2d.jpeg\"\/)
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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, speaks during a news conference on efforts to combat fraud. – Tom Brenner\/AP<\/p>\n
Administration officials sparred with California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s office and accused the state of failing to address rampant health care fraud in Southern California.<\/p>\n
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, called California the \u201ckingdom of fraud\u201d at a news conference announcing those arrests last week. Essayli said the federal government is \u201cproviding the oversight that has been missing from California for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who serves as the Health and Human Services administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also touted his agency\u2019s efforts to root out fraud in Minnesota and other states under Trump\u2019s direction, but noted \u201chospice in Southern California is an entire(ly) different level of fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonta rejected those claims Thursday, accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the widespread issue of hospice and medical fraud \u201cin their attempt to resurrect Trump\u2019s plummeting approval rating.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile health care fraud might be President Trump\u2019s shiny new political talking point, California DOJ has been going after health care fraud since 1979,\u201d the attorney general said. \u201cTrump is late to the party.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the last decade, the California Department of Justice\u2019s division of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse has recovered more than $1.5 billion from civil and criminal Medi-Cal fraud cases, Bonta said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our area of expertise; it\u2019s our bread and butter. It\u2019s what we do, and we will continue to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
State officials launched \u201cOperation Skip Trace\u201d last spring after receiving a tip concerning alleged hospice fraud at 14 companies, Bonta said.<\/p>\n
The investigation uncovered a network of shell companies that were purchasing personal identifying information on the dark web and enrolling out-of-state residents \u2013 who were completely healthy and unaware of the scheme \u2013 into California\u2019s hospice care system. The companies would then allegedly bill the state for services that were never provided and launder the money through a \u201ccomplex web\u201d of shell companies,\u201d Bonta said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a brazen, calculated criminal scheme that exploited the Medi-Cal system, stole from the state of California and Medicaid, and prevented the services and care from going to sick individuals who actually need it,\u201d Bonta said.<\/p>\n
If found guilty, he added, those charged could face up to 16 years in prison.<\/p>\n
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Attorney General Rob Bonta, together with the California Department of Health Care Services, announced charges filed against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,76677,29796,51730,76458,1755,7529,2803,2794,115350,1009],"class_list":["post-262647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-dr-mehmet-oz","tag-fraud-scheme","tag-health-care-fraud","tag-hospice","tag-medi-cal","tag-news-conference","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-rob-bonta","tag-shell-companies","tag-southern-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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