Suspect in Medicare fraud nabbed in Mexico, back in U.S.

[Judi Lynn]

Source: McClatchy, Miami Herald

Posted on Monday, 01.18.10
Feds catch Medicare-fraud fugitive in Mexico

BY JAY WEAVER
[e-mail]

Federal agents caught up with suspected Medicare scammer Jose Luis Perez in the resort town of Cancun and flew him back to Miami over the weekend to face a $179 million healthcare fraud indictment.

Agents received a tip that Perez had traveled to Cancun last summer after he found out he was facing arrest on Medicare fraud charges. They passed it on to the FBI's legal attaché office in Mexico City, which confirmed Perez' identity and location.

Mexico's Immigration Service then arrested the fugitive without incident, according to U.S. authorities. They said Perez, 34, was brought to Miami late Friday. He is scheduled to have a federal court hearing Tuesday.

Over the past five years, about 60 people charged with Medicare fraud have fled the United States, mostly to Cuba and other Latin American countries, after bilking the taxpayer-funded program out of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to FBI and Health and Human Services records.

Of those, authorities have arrested eight fugitives abroad or as they've attempted to return through Miami International Airport during the past two years.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1432025.html

[Systematic Chaos]

1. $179 million? That's nothing!

He could open up a bank and then skim a little bit of TARP money to pay that off and nobody would even be the wiser.

:banghead:

[glitch]

2. And they'd give him a year-end bonus. nt