Largest Medicaid fraud bust in DC history involves immigrants from Africa

02/21/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Great! More immigrant “entrepreneurs” for ‘Welcoming America’ to brag about!

We just mentioned yesterday in our widely read post on St. Cloud, MN that Somalis are busy setting up ‘home health care’ businesses and we have seen previous news accounts about how easy it is for such businesses to defraud the US taxpayer.

From Cameroon to DC: Here we come to rip-off some American taxpayers!

In this DC case, it appears that most of the fraudsters nabbed were from Cameroon according to (not surprisingly!) the last line in the story at CBS.DC. (It is very rare for the nationalities of immigrant law-breakers to be mentioned at all, so for this we are grateful.)

Many of those charged are immigrants from Cameroon in west Africa, but authorities did not go into detail about their nationalities.

Don’t you think there should be a law requiring that the public be informed about what LEGAL immigration program allowed these aliens to enter the US in the first place? It is always my first question!

Few of these crooks would be refugees because we don’t take many refugees from Cameroon. Nor does DC resettle many refugees although Maryland surely does. So how did they get here?

From CBS.DC. Hat tip: Bob. Emphasis is mine:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Federal authorities say 25 people have been charged in a wide-ranging scheme to obtain millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid payments from the District of Columbia government.

U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen calls it the largest health-care fraud case in the city’s history. It involved bogus claims for home care services, a category of Medicaid claim that has grown dramatically in the city over the past eight years. Machen says fraud is largely responsible for the increase in those claims. The uptick in billings for home care — from $40 million in 2006 to $280 million last year — was part of what tipped off authorities to illegal activity, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen said.

“We concluded that much of the growth was due to aggressive networks of fraudsters paying kickbacks to beneficiaries to manufacture false claims for nonexistent services,” Machen said, later adding: “Medicaid fraud in the District of Columbia is at epidemic levels.”

Ms. Bikundi’s upscale home in Maryland!
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/02/florence-bikundi-arrested-in-medicaid-fraud-crackdown-100429.html

Among those charged Thursday was Florence Bikundi, 51, of Bowie, Md., the owner of a home care agency in suburban Maryland who had lost her nursing license and was ineligible to receive Medicaid payments. Authorities say that by using different names, she was able to bill the city for $75 million in Medicaid payments.

Prosecutors say many of the defendants persuaded patients to fake illness or injury so they could bill Medicaid for home care they didn’t receive. Some of those patients received kickbacks, authorities said, although no patients have been charged.

[….]

Machen said it wasn’t clear whether any of those payments went to legitimate home care services, but Bikundi was able to amass significant personal wealth, authorities said. Among the property seized from her were millions of dollars from 46 bank accounts, a 7,300-square-foot home valued at $927,000 and five luxury vehicles.

Sometimes I think there are fraud training programs abroad before the immigrant even gets here—maybe a Scams 101, or Fraud-planning for Dummies—-because some of the ones we’ve written about on these pages require a level of sophistication and an infusion of seed money that one wouldn’t expect your average migrant to be blessed with.

Just a reminder! We are posting stories like this one at a new facebook page entitled ‘Diversity’s Dark Side.’ Check it out and “Like” it, here.

Is Amarillo, TX joining the “pockets of resistance” to refugee resettlement?

02/21/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Readers may wish to contact Rep. Thornberry and encourage his willingness to speak up. Contact info. is here—best to try the Amarillo office first then ask for a staff person who works on immigration issues.

It looks like David Lubell and his mind-police at ‘Welcoming America’ have another emergency on their hands, this time in Texas!

In my previous post this morning I mentioned that ‘Welcoming America’ has been hired by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to help head off “pockets of resistance” to more refugee resettlement in immigrant over-loaded cities. And, no sooner did I post it than reader Joanne sent along this hot news story—‘Amarillo struggles to handle influx of refugees‘ from the Texas Tribune.

Wyoming, why do you think the State Department needs you now? They are running out of places to resettle thousands of new refugees entering the US each month!

US Rep Mac Thornberry: “We cannot keep going at the rate we’ve been going,”

Texas Tribune (emphasis is mine):

More international refugees were resettled in Texas in 2012 than in any other state, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. And one of the leading destinations is Amarillo, where members of Thawng’s church and other newcomers from places like Myanmar and Iraq often work in meatpacking plants.

Now local officials are worried that Amarillo’s refugee population is straining the Panhandle city’s ability to respond to 911 callers who speak numerous languages and to help schoolchildren learn English and adapt to a new culture.

“We’ve raised some red flags and said this isn’t good for some entities in the city or for the refugees themselves,” said Mayor Paul Harpole.

Amarillo, the state’s 14th largest city, with 195,000 residents, receives a higher ratio of new refugees to the existing population than any other Texas city, according to 2007-12 State Department data from U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon. And the only Texas cities that receive a larger number of refugees than Amarillo (which received 480 in 2012) are also the state’s largest: Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.

But those numbers show only a refugee’s initial placement and do not account for secondary migration, Thornberry said. Many refugees who initially settle elsewhere relocate to Amarillo for jobs or to join family members.

The State Department decides how many refugees are resettled in an area, and states review those recommendations. Last fall, the department, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and refugee placement organizations agreed that for 2014, placements in Amarillo should be limited to family reunifications, said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission.

“We cannot keep going at the rate we’ve been going,” Thornberry said. [Readers: we often see mayors raise red flags, but rarely is a Member of Congress brave enough to say something like this publicly!—ed]

Catholic Charities brought refugees for meatpacking jobs! Where have we heard that before?

Now there aren’t so many of those jobs (someone please tell Grover to call off the amnesty, there are legal immigrants here looking for work!).

Even so, she soon considered Amarillo her home, and 17 years later, she’s still there. She is now interim director of refugee resettlement at Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle, which helps people who have fled war and persecution find homes and jobs. Many find work at area meatpacking plants, which often pay $14 an hour, Lohony said.

But Harpole said demand for workers at the plants was declining. “We just think it’s going to be more difficult for the refugees to do well here,” he said.

Educational challenges, cultural challenges and how not to go hunting for food on private property! What! The do-gooders at Catholic Charities can’t feed them? Shame on you!

For schools, challenges include educating students who sometimes cannot read in English or in their native language, Thornberry said.

“You look at the burden you’re placing on the school system not only to meet the testing requirements but to help integrate these kids into modern American life,” he said.

Cultural differences are also an issue outside schools, he said. Recently a refugee was found on a local ranch hunting for food.

“Obviously, it was quite a shock to some of the ranchers,” Thornberry said.

Check out our previous mentions of Amarillo—a preferred resettlement site in 2009—here.

Nashville: David Lubell’s immigrant entrepreneurs busted for selling illegal drugs …

02/21/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..from, what else, their convenience stores!

David Lubell of ‘Welcoming America’ founded ‘Welcoming Tennessee’ and now works for ORR and George Soros promoting immigrant entrepreneurs, among other multi-cultural joys.

Who is David Lubell? He is the much bally-hood founder of ‘Welcoming Tennessee’ and now he runs a partially government-funded non-profit (they get funds from GEORGE SOROS too!) called ‘Welcoming America’ that has been hired by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to get YOUR minds right about immigrants. We first showcased them here in June of 2013.

Keep in mind this is not a community organizing group geared toward encouraging refugees and other immigrants to try to fit in to your cities and towns, they are working on YOU (the “receiving community”), to make you more “welcoming” to the diversity coming your way.

Two days ago, Lubell was showcased at the New York Times blog which tells us that without David Lubell and his ‘Welcoming Tennessee‘ there would be no ‘vibrant’ immigrant city—Nashville— filled with foreign ‘entrepreneurs’ (one of their favorite themes involves immigrants bringing new business to your pathetic city) and ‘vibrant diversity.’

Nashville has the fastest growing foreign-born population in the US, here.

I have a pressing question, as do some of our readers: If immigrants were bringing economic boom times to beleaguered cities then why aren’t these cities—Lewiston, ME, Manchester, NH, Clarkston, GA?—clamoring for more immigrant entrepreneurs? Instead they are begging for less! LOL! Welcoming America and ORR calls these “pockets of resistance.”

Why, also, are those who resettle refugees always out scouting new fresh unsuspecting territory in which to place refugees—-like Wyoming!

So to the New York Times…..

First some stats that blew me away. Surely you are all familiar with the great wave of immigrants that came to America in the late 1880’s to early 1900’s (there was no welfare for them by the way, they had to survive and learn English or go back to where they came from and most were Europeans).

The wave was so great that the US cut off immigration to any large extent for decades following the 1920’s so that there might be time for the huge flood to assimilate, and to allow time for the American voters to calm down. Get this! We have allowed more immigration in the last 20 years than we did in 40 of the great wave.

From the NYT blog:

The need has rarely been greater. From 1990 to 2010, the United States immigrant population increased by 20 million, roughly the same number of people who entered the country during the great wave of immigration between 1880 and 1920. Today, there are about 40 million foreign-born people in the United States (about 46 percent are naturalized citizens).

Unlike the immigrants of the past, the new immigrants are more diverse and more scattered — many living in midsize cities like Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Ky.; Dayton, Ohio; and Memphis, where, until recently, the foreign-born populations were small. [Cities cited here are sites of refugee resettlement, immigrants just don’t “find their way” from Africa or the Middle East to Boise or Memphis!—ed]

Mohammad Amer busted in Nashville for drug sales out of a liquor store—Lubell immigrant entrepreneur?

Lubell’s Nashville entrepreneurs:

You can read the rest of the opinion piece, a paean to David Lubell, yourself because I want to tell you about some of Lubell’s Nashville entrepreneurial stars–Ebrahim Fahim, Maged Youssef Milkhail and Mohammad Amer! Word on the street in Nashville is that some of those charged are Egyptians who received asylum claiming religious persecution back home (are they among the 70% found to be frauds?)

From The Tennessean earlier this month:

Two convenience stores could go out of business after their owners — one of which has now been busted twice — admitted in court Friday that they sold a liquid form of synthetic marijuana

Metro police in January padlocked First Discount Tobacco & Beer and Dolphin Market Discount Tobacco & Beer on Lebanon Pike after they say the owners sold a liquid designed to get electronic cigarette users high. The products were sold for $40 per bottle with names such as “Relax” and “Maui Maui.” A worker at Dolphin Market marketed the drug to one customer as a way to get high.

It wasn’t the first time First Discount has been accused of selling illegal, synthetic marijuana. The store was shuttered in 2012 after they were found selling products called “7H Kush” and “Purple Diesel” marketed as “incense” but designed to get people high.

On Friday, that business’ owners, Said Ebrahim Fahim and Maged Youssef Milkhail, pleaded guilty to contempt of court charges for violating an order stemming from the 2012 raid. Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier, who had made the 2012 order, ruled that the pair would avoid jail time, but First Discount would be padlocked for 90 days. He ordered that Dolphin Market, which had no priors, be closed for 30 days and forfeit $14,000.

Nashville police shut down 20 such businesses (at least temporarily)! I hope they were investigating food stamp fraud too!

With the help of a 2012 law, Nashville’s police and prosecutors have used public nuisances statutes to shut down nearly 20 businesses found to have been selling these illegal drugs, which are typically synthetic variants of marijuana, ecstasy or amphetamines marketed as incense or bath salts.

What’s a good Muslim entrepreneur (see photo of Mohammad Amer) doing running a liquor store? I guess that is a question for another day. But, here is the other bust reported in Nashville recently.

Once your city is deemed “welcoming,” get ready for more immigrant schemers (oops! entrepreneurs!) like these!