8 Dade Residents Charged With Healthcare Fraud
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CORAL GABLES(CBSMiami) -- Eight Miami-Dade County residents have been charged with a $25 million health care fraud scheme in which people in Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic posed as Florida residents.
Three residents of Nicaragua have also been charged in the case.
On Wednesday morning federal agents walked in and out of a Coral Gables building located at 2100 Ponce De Leon Boulevard as part of a the federal investigating in connection to the alleged scheme.
"I come in and I find a whole bunch of federal people here. A whole bunch of people have been arrested and it's getting worse and worse. I don't believe a word of what they said to me," said Florida Healthcare Plus client Dinorah Rangel.
As a member of Florida Healthcre plus, she said has had several questions for her healthcare provider but when she arrived to their offices on the 12th floor, she was hit with a surprising situation.
"The elevator door opens and guess what. The federals are there and they've been arrested and they're carrying out boxes," said Rangel.
Most of the individuals arrested were employed by Florida Healthcare Plus.
A federal grand jury in Miami returned a 36-count indictment on October 30th charging Pedro Hernandez, a/k/a "Peter Hernandez," 51, of Miramar, Freddy Zeron, 52, of Miami and Nicaragua, Erendira V. Delgado, a/k/a "Eren Delgado," 31, of Miami, Edgardo Rodriguez, 47, of Homestead and Nicaragua, Rodney Montoya, 36, of Miami, Santiago Bernabe Montoya, 72, of Miami, Jose Eloy Sanchez, a/k/a "Jose Eloy Sanchez Arguello," 70, of Coral Gables and Nicaragua, Abram J. Rodriguez, a/k/a "Abe Rodriguez," 31, of Miami, Mirna L Blanco, 49, of Hialeah, Deborah Smith, 53, of Hialeah, and Augustin Abaga, 48, of Sunny Isles.
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Federal and state prosecutors said Wednesday the conspirators submitted false enrollment applications for Medicare and Florida's Medicaid program. The applications claimed the foreign individuals were Floridians when they were not, using addresses of family members living in South Florida.
The scam also involved travel for the foreign individuals to Miami so they could be seen by a licensed physician. That resulted in false diagnoses that were also used in the fraudulent benefits applications.
The charges include health care fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and making false statements. Three of the 11 charged remained at large Wednesday.
In addition to the indictment, the Department of Justice is pursuing a parallel civil action to freeze the assets of various defendants for approximately $10 million in fraudulent proceeds.
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