In one of the strangest Medicaid fraud cases in recent history, the Justice Department is charging several Russian diplomats and their families with illegally accessing Medicaid-covered prenatal and pediatric care in New York City.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed charges against 49 Russians -- current or former diplomats and their spouses -- after an investigation found "widespread submission of falsified applications" for Medicaid coverage for prenatal care, birth, and young children between 2004 and 2013.
Altogether, the Justice Department and FBI allege, the 49 diplomats, their families and others not being charged used $1.5 million worth of Medicaid care for their children, at the same time that many of them were taking cruises and shopping at Tiffany & Co., Jimmy Choo, Prada, Bloomingdale's and Burberry.
Russian diplomats and their spouses gave birth to 63 children in New York City between 2004 and 2013, 58 of them were in families receiving Medicaid benefits, according to the complaint.
One former diplomat at the Russian Mission to the United Nations and his wife are being accused of listing an income of $3,000 a month when applying for Medicaid pregnancy benefits in 2010 -- significantly less than the monthly earnings of $8,333 investigators found listed on a credit application.
The couple went on to use some $31,000 in pediatric Medicaid benefits, while spending about $50,000 in 2012, including more than $8,000 in Apple products.
Each of the 49 defendants has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to steal government funds and make false statements.
Conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud comes with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, the second charge with a maximum of five years. Eleven of the Russian diplomats and family members charged are currently in the country, five are still working at the United Nations and one is now working at Russia's embassy in Washington, D.C.
It seems unlikely, though, that the defendants will ever face the charges in court, let alone prison time, because of diplomatic immunity offered by international law.
For whatever reasons, New York City's Russian community includes fraudsters that have been a source of some of the country's largest healthcare fraud schemes and source of ill reputation for the greater community.
In a recent speech, New York's Health Commissioner, Nirav Shah, MD, quipped that in Brooklyn "the Russian mafia controls the ambulances and they make up hundreds of fake ambulette visits shuffling nonexistent patients to nonexistent visits and their homes."
Last year, 10 physicians in New York City were indicted on healthcare fraud charges and accused of being a front for Russian criminals orchestrating a $250 million private insurance fraud scheme.