Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel (C) speaks at a news conference at the at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building on June 23, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
More than 400 people, including scores of medical professionals, now face federal charges linked to healthcare fraud or opioid abuse schemes, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed as the law enforcement agency unveiled the results of this year’s National Health Care Fraud Takedown.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that the takedown effort resulted in charges against 455 people, 90 of whom are doctors or other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged roles in various and unrelated schemes that aimed to reap $6.5 billion combined from false claims. Some of the schemes, however, resulted in patients being significantly harmed or potentially dying.
"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," said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. "Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison."
Yacht and Bentley Continental GT purchased with proceeds of alleged fraud (Source: Department of Justice)
The Justice Department highlighted various cases against certain defendants, showing how they allegedly tried to defraud the medical system or those in need of care. In some cases, prosecutors also detailed what the suspects were accused of doing with the money they took in.
In one case, a nurse practitioner was charged in Texas for a $906 million plot where she would allegedly apply medically unnecessary allografts and then bill Medicare, on average, more than $1 million per patient. According to prosecutors, she used that money to help pay to build a $4.6 million beach resort in the Philippines and to buy luxury vehicles and jewelry. Among other items, law enforcement reported seizing an $865,000 custom Bulgari necklace, a Ferrari 296 GTS, and over $30 million that was in her bank accounts.
The Department of Justice released images of a Bulgari necklace and render of a beach resort in the Philippines tied to a nurse practitioner charged in an alleged health care fraud scheme. (Source: Department of Justice)
Elsewhere, eleven defendants, including a company executive and eight medical professionals, were tied to a multi-billion-dollar scheme that was also based on allografts. In their case, they are accused of a kickback scheme that ballooned profit margins and led to "lavish lifestyles" for those who participated. Prosecutors alleged they would acquire the allografts and relabel them at a 2,000% markup. Over approximately a two-and-a-half-year period, they billed over $4 billion and received $2 billion in payments. The DOJ added that two people were sentenced last year in connection with this scheme.
As part of the Justice Department, the National Fraud Division’s Health Care Task Force program was started in 2007 and is composed of nine strike forces. Even before including the charges filed on Tuesday, the task force has charged more than 6,200 defendants over billings that exceeded $45 billion.