WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States Department of Justice announced Tuesday the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown.
The operation resulted in charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals. They are accused of participating in health care fraud and opioid-abuse schemes involving over $6.5 billion in false claims and significant patient harm, including death.
“This Takedown represents a new era in federal, state, and international cooperation to combat health care fraud: cases in 56 federal districts and 45 U.S. states and territories, with 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units participating, the most in Department history.” the Department of Justice stated.
In addition, unprecedented international cooperation over the two-week Takedown resulted in the apprehension and return to the United States of the following health care fraudsters:
— One defendant in Kyrenia in connection with an over $3.7 billion scheme.
— Two defendants in Estonia in connection with a previously charged $10.6 billion scheme.
— In the Philippines, one of FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters in connection with a previously-charged $1.2 billion telemedicine fraud scheme.
The Takedown involves the cutting-edge use of data analytics to target the worst actors; the seizure of over $182 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and other assets; and full-spectrum accountability for all criminal actors from doctor’s offices to corporate boardrooms.
This coordinated enforcement action involves a whole-of-government approach, including:
- Actions by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to suspend 1,079 providers and revoke billing privileges for 1,403 providers.
- 48 Civil Monetary Payment settlements amounting to over $73 million, over 1,400 provider exclusions, and 25 actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“HHS-OIG”) under the Civil Monetary Penalties Law seeking more than $10 billion in payments to the Medicare Trust Fund from payments that CMS caught and suspended before the funds were paid to the fraudulent providers.
- Civil charges against 13 defendants for $14.8 million in health care fraud schemes, as well as civil settlements with 31 defendants totaling $23 million.
- 928 administrative cases by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seeking the revocation of authority to handle and/or prescribe controlled substances since October 1, 2025.
“This year’s National Health Care Fraud Takedown represents the greatest whole-of-government effort to combat health care fraud in our Nation’s history,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“Under the decisive leadership of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, and our law enforcement partners, this administration has ushered in a new era of enforcement that will safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
“We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using health care as a front to steal from the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “As today’s cases and arrests show, there is no case too big, no scheme too complex, and no hiding place too remote for our relentless fraud-fighting team. Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison.”
“Health care fraud steals from taxpayers, exploits vulnerable patients, and puts lives at risk,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Today’s historic enforcement action sends a clear message: if you use our health care system to enrich yourself at the expense of patients or the American people, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will hold you accountable. HHS will continue working with our law enforcement partners to protect patients, safeguard taxpayer dollars, and restore integrity to our health care system.”
“The coordination in the Health Care Fraud Takedown reinforces the Trump Administration’s efforts to end the crimes of bad actors who have ripped off U.S. taxpayers,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “This is a whole of government effort, to hold those who defraud our nation accountable. Our message is clear: if you steal from American taxpayers, you will face the consequences.”
“This results of this nationwide healthcare takedown are historic,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Under the leadership of President Trump, Vice President Vance, and the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, this FBI worked alongside our DOJ partners to arrest and charge over 450 people, including almost 100 medical professionals, for over $6 billion in alleged healthcare fraud schemes – showing the enormous amount of work done by our interagency law enforcement team over the last month and beyond.
“While today’s announcement is one of the largest on record–every arrest is a continued message to criminal actors who rob American taxpayers that you will not get away with your crimes.”
Fraudulent wound care schemes
Charges were filed against 11 defendants, including a company executive and eight medical professionals, across six districts in connection with billions of dollars in fraudulent claims for amniotic wound allografts.
In the District of Arizona, the Vice President of Sales for a company that sold allografts was charged in a nationwide illegal kickback and health care fraud scheme. From approximately December 2021 through June 2024, providers billed Medicare over $4 billion for this company’s allografts, resulting in over $2 billion in payments.
This significant spike in allograft billings was alleged to have been driven not by medical necessity, but by a kickback scheme that generated substantial profit margins and lavish lifestyles for marketers and providers who participated.
The company did not manufacture allografts and instead acquired allografts from tissue banks and relabeled them for sale at a 2,000% mark-up, charging up to $1,450 per square centimeter.
The defendant is alleged to have paid illegal kickbacks of approximately 40% of that amount, allowing marketers and medical providers to pocket approximately $500-600 per square centimeter.
These lucrative kickbacks allegedly caused the defendant and others to target hospice patients and apply the allografts without coordination with the patients’ treating physicians, without proper treatment for infection, to superficial wounds that did not need this treatment, and to areas that far exceeded the size of the wound.
The defendant received over $24 million from the company, which he used to purchase multi-million-dollar houses, million-dollar life insurance policies, luxury vehicles, including a $135,000 Maserati, and luxury watches. This follows 15.5- and 14-year sentences obtained last year in connection with the scheme.
Today’s charges reflect the Department’s intention to prosecute both the architects of fraud and those who betray their oath to carry out the scheme. In the Southern District of Texas, a nurse practitioner was charged for a $906 million scheme in which she applied medically unnecessary allografts and billed Medicare more than $1 million per patient on average.
As alleged, the defendant used the fraud proceeds to purchase high-end vehicles, real estate, and luxury jewelry, and to fund the construction of a $4.6 million of a beach resort in the Philippines.
The government seized over $30 million in bank accounts, a $594,000 Ferrari 296 GTS, seven other high-end vehicles, an $865,000 custom Bulgari necklace, and $1 million worth of other luxury jewelry.
$865,000 Bulgari necklace seized as proceeds of alleged Medicare fraud scheme involving wound allografts; rendering of beach resort in the Philippines constructed with $4.6 million allegedly stolen from Medicare in wound allograft fraud scheme
Similarly, in the Middle District of Florida, three defendants were charged for their roles in an $118 million allograft fraud scheme where a nurse practitioner allegedly used the proceeds to fund her lavish lifestyle, including a luxury box at an NFL stadium and over $400,000 in fine art.
The Health Care Fraud Unit’s Data Analytics Team detected a spike in payment for allografts, leading to prosecutions. CMS separately realigned payment, reducing Medicare’s payment to $127 per square centimeter starting on January 1, 2026. If CMS had not taken action to address unprecedented spending on allografts, the Part B premium increase caused by allograft payments alone would have cost every Medicare beneficiary in the country an extra $11 a month.
“Prosecuting criminals who steal from American patients is necessary—but stopping them before a single dollar leaves the building is smarter,” said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. “CMS is done playing catch-up. We’re deploying advanced data analytics to expose fraud networks, freeze suspicious payments, and shut down bad actors before they can do damage to the programs that millions of Americans depend on.”
Patient harm
Health care fraud is a top white-collar priority of the Department because it both steals from the taxpayers and risks harm to patients by corrupt medical providers. In the Southern District of Florida, the medical director of a cardiovascular testing and treatment practice was charged in connection with an $89 million scheme to bill for unnecessary cardiovascular tests, such as EKGs and echocardiograms, conducted on student athletes on school campuses.
According to the charges, the defendant and his co-conspirators used marketing tactics designed to prey on fears that student athletes could die from sudden cardiac arrest. The defendant then allegedly falsified diagnoses to defraud health care benefit programs for the testing.
Despite knowing, as the defendant wrote, that “these kids could be high risk . . . one of them drops dead on the field, they’re coming after both of us,” he allegedly rubber stamped the test results as normal without reviewing them — sometimes approving test results within mere seconds — such that student athletes with cardiac abnormalities were not informed that they needed to stop participating in sports, risking sudden cardiac arrest.
Despite one patient’s test results showing an enlarged heart, the defendant allegedly signed off on the test results as normal within approximately 11 seconds of accessing the 63 cardiovascular test result images. Approximately 24 days later, the student athlete died from complications related to an enlarged heart during a basketball practice.
“Safeguarding the integrity of federal health care programs is central to our mission, and the results of this year’s National Health Care Fraud Takedown reflect the strength of our collective commitment,” said HHS Inspector General T. March Bell. “The cases announced today demonstrate not only the scale, but the seriousness of the misconduct uncovered, ranging from patient harming schemes to multibillion dollar fraud operations.”
“HHS-OIG will continue to pursue those who engage in such conduct and hold them accountable. I am grateful for the tireless work of our special agents and for the partnership we share with our federal, state, and local law enforcement colleagues as we work together to protect patients and preserve public funds.”
Medicaid fraud
Data shows that Medicaid is a vital government benefit program increasingly targeted by criminals.
Building upon the success of the recent Minnesota Health Care Fraud Takedown and the Acting Attorney General’s authorization of an enhancement for the Health Care Fraud Unit to investigate Medicaid fraud nationwide, today’s Takedown includes the largest number of Medicaid fraud defendants and Medicaid fraud loss charged in Department history: 295 defendants and over $518 million in false claims submitted to Medicaid.