PANews reported on July 3 that the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had cracked the largest health insurance fraud case in history, indicting 324 defendants for more than $14.6 billion in false claims. The defendants included 96 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other professional medical personnel, distributed in 50 federal districts and 12 state attorneys general offices across the United States.
The operation also seized more than $245 million in cash, cryptocurrencies, luxury cars and other assets, while the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) prevented more than $4 billion in fraudulent payments by suspending or revoking the billing privileges of 205 providers.
The case involved the "Golden Operation" case, which accounted for $10.6 billion in fraud and was linked to organized crime in Russia, Estonia and Kazakhstan. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said there would be a zero-tolerance approach to criminal behavior that exploited the health care system for profit.