Portland, OR: Lebanese family ripped-off US taxpayers, while some lived in Lebanon

03/28/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

These are apparently not “refugees” but some legal program allowed this family of crooks to live among us for years and steal from the taxpayers through social security, food stamp and healthcare fraud.

I’m bringing you this story for two reasons: first the complexity of this immigrant ‘entrepreneur’ scam once again confirms that some immigrants are skilled (trained?) in how to tap into our welfare system, and secondly, every American should watch for such frauds in your home town and report them! In this case, local pharmacy employees smelled a rat while the crooks made some dumb moves.

From The Oregonian. He applied for home health care for a mother who lived in Lebanon! Hat tip: crime sleuth ‘pungentpeppers.’

Emphasis is mine:

An unemployed Southeast Portland man who reportedly wore lots of jewelry, flashed pictures of trips to Lebanon and owned a Mercedes was sentenced to six months of prison Wednesday for cashing disability checks for a sister who was living outside the United States. [Only six months!—ed]

Jason I. Boutros, 49, must also pay nearly $221,000 in restitution to the Social Security Administration and the Oregon Department of Human Services, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon ordered.

Boutros was one of four family members who, prosecutors said, bilked federal and state agencies of disability, Medicaid and food-stamp benefits over several years, collecting payments even as some lived in Lebanon for long stretches, making them ineligible.

Investigators began looking into Boutros’ payments in 2009 when he submitted a request to DHS seeking payment for providing home-care services for his mother in March of that year, court filings say. But the state learned his mother had been out of the country in March 2009.

Pharmacy employees blew the whistle!

The lifestyle of the Boutros family had raised questions by employees at the pharmacy where the family would pick up prescriptions, a sentencing memorandum states. One said Boutros wore “lots of jewelry” and showed photos of trips to Lebanon and another said she had reported him to a fraud hotline.

And when agents searched Boutros’ Southeast Portland home in April 2013, they found a Mercedes in the garage and a tanning bed in another building on the property, according to Cooper’s sentencing memorandum.

Read it all!

This and many other stories like it may be found every day at the facebook page ‘Diversity’s Dark Side.’ Check it out! Like it!

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.

HHS Office of Inspector General website hosts immigrant fraudsters most-wanted list

02/17/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is cool! Have fun perusing the Department of Health and Human Services OIG website for immigrants who ripped-off the US taxpayer and fled. Hat tip: Creeping Sharia. Many of the cases involve health care fraud which is surely going to get worse under Obamacare.

Here is a portion of just one of the profiles:

In January 2012, Yousef Kurdy was indicted on charges of health care fraud, aggravated identity theft, receipt of kickbacks for patient referrals, income tax evasion, aiding and abetting, and criminal forfeiture. Investigators believe that Kurdy fraudulently billed Medicare and Medi-Cal over $150,000.

[….]

In January 2012, an arrest warrant was issued for Kurdy, who indicated that he would self-surrender, but failed to show up for his initial court appearance. Consequently, he is considered a fugitive at large. Investigators believe that he may be residing in Syria.

LOL! Watch the crook return with a new name as a Syrian refugee!

Immigrant-perpetrated fraud is a side interest here at RRW and with the help of a reader from Kentucky, you can now help spread the news about scams and frauds run by those we “welcomed” to America at a new facebook page: Diversity’s Dark Side. ‘Like’ it here!

Immigrant “advocate” pleads guilty in health care scam

09/18/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As far as I know this doesn’t involve refugees (it might though), but since we have been talking about immigrants ripping off US taxpayers with the food stamp program, I wanted to be sure you saw this story from San Diego. Nawal Talia, apparently a lawyer or acting like one, helped rip-off the US taxpayer for more than a million bucks.

Nawal Talia is listed at the Middle Eastern Community Resource Directory as “Specializing in disability& immigration law services.”

From San Diego 6:

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A Spring Valley woman pleaded guilty Friday to taking part in a multi-year scheme to falsify medical certifications while working as an advocate for immigrants seeking help in obtaining U.S. citizenship or government benefits.

Nawal Talia, 57, admitted during a hearing in federal court in San Diego that she recruited patients for National City psychologist Roberto Velasquez, who was sentenced earlier this year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay more than $1.5 million to the Social Security Administration in the largest single restitution order in the agency’s history.

As part of her job, Talia for several years submitted documents to federal agencies on behalf of her clients, certifying that they were mentally disabled. Rather than obtain benefits legitimately, she and Velasquez worked together to falsify medical certifications and fabricate patient histories, according to prosecutors.

Talia admitted that she helped Velasquez falsify disability-exception certification forms used by the Department of Homeland Security during the naturalization process and medical letters used by the Social Security Administration to award Supplemental Security Income and disability payments.

Go to the US Attorney’s office press release which describes in more detail the egregious “massive” crime she committed.

As is often the case in these scam reports, I could not find a photo of Ms. Talia. The graphic and her listing is here.

Someone really needs to write a whole blog on the full array of fraud schemes being perpetrated by immigrant-fraudsters on the US government (on us!).

Related maybe: Yesterday I got a notice about a teleconference on immigrant scams (the notice went to refugee “stakeholders”) that the USCIS is putting on. At first I thought it was about immigrant-perpetrated scams, but it’s about protecting immigrants from shyster lawyers (like Talia?). I figured it wasn’t worth posting on in a separate post, but maybe it will interest you.