FBI charges Russians with Medicaid fraud

The FBI on Thursday charged 49 current and former Russian diplomats and their spouses for their roles in what they say was a near decade-long scheme to defraud Medicaid of half a million dollars in benefits.

{mosads}Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara and FBI assistant director George Venizelos said each of the defendants “participated in a widespread scheme to illegally obtain Medicaid benefits for prenatal care and related costs by, among other things, falsely underreporting their income or falsely claiming that their child was a citizen of the United States.”

“Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country,” Bharara said in a statement. “Here, as alleged, a multitude of Russian diplomats and their spouses ran a scam on a health care system designed to help Americans in need. As the complaint alleges, the scam exploited a weakness in the Medicaid system, and the charges expose shameful and systemic corruption among Russian diplomats in New York.”

The 49 defendants work or have worked at either the Russian Mission to the United Nations, the Russian Federation Consulate General in New York, or the New York office of the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation in the USA.

Of the 49, 11 are currently in the U.S. Five of the charged presently work at The Mission, five are spouses, and one works at the Trade Representation. The remaining 38 are no longer in the U.S.

The Russians each face one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to steal government funds and make false statements relating to healthcare matters, which carry maximum sentences of 10 years and five years in prison, respectively.

“The United States government values its long-standing relationship with foreign diplomats and diplomatic establishments for cooperation on many issues,” Venizelos said. “Unfortunately, as detailed in the complaint, some Russian officials in New York allowed these defendants to take advantage of that relationship.”

“Motivated by greed and the purchase of high-end luxury items, these defendants allegedly perpetrated a fraud to illegally obtain Medicaid benefits to which they were not entitled,” he continued. “The unsealing of the complaint today highlights the criminal activities of these defendants and reminds the public that health care fraud remains an ongoing problem in our country.”