Federal officials seek to root out financial and Medicare fraud

Reuters: "The head of the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal division told a gathering of criminal defense lawyers on Thursday that the division was using tools 'not often seen in white collar cases' to combat financial fraud," which includes Medicare. Lanny Breuer said that the "department was committed to fighting fraud 'from Wall Street to Main Street'" and "cited as an example establishment of a Medicare Strike Force to combat health care fraud. Since it first began operating in Miami and Los Angeles in 2007, the strike force has charged more than 300 defendants in 200 cases totaling about $860 million in fraud, he said. ... The strike force has expanded its operations to Detroit, Houston, Brooklyn, New York, Tampa, Florida and Baton Rouge, Louisiana ..." The speech was at an American Bar Association white-collar crime conference (Margolies, 2/25).

The Miami Herald: "Beware, corporate America: The Justice Department says it will be running more undercover operations -- typically aimed at mobsters, cartels, and terrorists -- to target financial scammers. ... 'Clearly, you've been affected dramatically by these [crimes],' [Breuer] told The Miami Herald. 'It's not a coincidence that we sent the Medicare fraud strike force to Miami first'" (Weaver, 2/26).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.