Russian criminal network received almost a billion dollars from the US state health insurance program. The Horns and Hooves of the XXI Century

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According to the investigation, the scheme began operating in 2022. The criminal organization, based in Russia, acquired more than 30 medical equipment supply companies in various US states — from California and Texas to Illinois. All of them were already registered with the state medical insurance program Medicare and were eligible to receive state payments.

To implement the plan, the organization recruited young people, primarily from Russia and Estonia. They were sent to the US, where they officially became owners of the companies, although in fact they only followed the organizers' instructions, writes the New York Post.

Subsequently, the companies began massively submitting claims to Medicare for reimbursement for supposedly supplied medical equipment — mainly urinary catheters. Stolen data of about 7,000 doctors and more than a million Medicare beneficiaries were used for this purpose.

One of the main nodes of the scheme, according to case materials, was the company G&I Ortho Supply in Brooklyn (New York). The investigation claims that thousands of fictitious invoices were sent from there on behalf of patients from all corners of the US. In New York, the group used two addresses, but the second one has not yet been disclosed.

According to the prosecution, during the scheme's existence, its participants submitted fictitious claims for reimbursement of $10.6 billion to the state. Of this amount, $941 million was paid out. According to the investigation, the funds received were later laundered through China, Israel, Pakistan, Singapore, and Turkey.

Павялічыць

An inconspicuous office in Brooklyn (New York), which, according to federal authorities, turned out to be one of the centers of the Russian fraudulent scheme. Photo: Google

The scale of the fraud is evidenced by at least one fact: just one of the companies linked to the scheme claimed more than $250 million in reimbursement for the supply of urinary catheters in 2023. This is $50 million more than the state program spent on catheters from all other suppliers of such products in the US combined. Moreover, only seven shell companies caused a $1.9 billion increase in state payments for urinary catheters in 2023.

The consequences of the scam affected not only the state budget. According to the investigation, data of more than a million Medicare beneficiaries were compromised.

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid reported that 1.3 million people received new Medicare numbers because their previous identifiers might have been used by fraudsters.

As a result, more than 400,000 complaints were filed by patients and healthcare providers who noticed bills in their documents for goods and services they had not actually received.

Role of Straw Owners

The investigation has not yet disclosed who exactly led this network. However, the materials from the court proceedings against two straw owners of the companies allow us to understand how this fraudulent scheme worked.

One of them was 26-year-old Estonian citizen Aleksandr Liis. According to the young man's lawyer, Liis was recruited and sent to New York, where he lived in a Times Square hotel for nine months. During this time, he became the nominal owner of Konaniah Medical Supplies in Texas and another company in Kentucky.

The former courier, who did not speak English, received instructions via text messages in a messenger. He opened bank accounts, asking for a Russian-speaking bank employee whose name he had been given in advance, processed documents, and received Medicare checks. For nine months of work, he was paid only $17,000.

The investigation claims that more than $6 million obtained through fraud passed through Liis's accounts. In 2025, the young man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. The court sentenced him to 28 months in prison, but he has already been released (taking into account time spent in pretrial detention) and was deported to Estonia.

Lawyers insisted that Liis was only a minor perpetrator who did not realize the true scale of the scheme. However, Professor of Criminology at John Jay College and former Interpol employee Sergei Chalukhin evaluates the situation differently.

"It's impossible to just pick someone off the street in Chechnya or Estonia and entrust them with such work. They have a closed network of contacts where people are selected through recommendations," the publication quotes the expert.

In January of this year, a federal court in Chicago brought charges against Kazakh citizen Anuar Abdrakhmanov.

According to investigation materials, in April 2024, he gained control over Priority One Medical Equipment in Kentucky and used it to submit fictitious claims for approximately $666 million for glucometers and urinary catheters.

Prosecutors claim that the company's office was virtually unused, but employees were paid $6,000 a month just for forwarding mail and checks according to instructions received via Telegram, and sending money to addresses in the Chicago area.

Павялічыць

Photo of an almost empty office of Priority One Medical Equipment in Kentucky and a photograph from a driver's license issued to Anuar Abdrakhmanov. Source: U.S. District Court records / cwbchicago.com

According to the investigation, part of the funds was also transferred to accounts in Hong Kong. The case is still under consideration, Abdrakhmanov has not yet pleaded guilty.

As the New York Post writes, the expanded indictment published at the end of June contains the names of 12 more individuals. Among them are citizens of Russia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and one US citizen, Jason Anufrienko. All of them are wanted.

They are accused of conspiracy, wire fraud, healthcare fraud, and money laundering.

According to prosecutors, after arrests began, the organizers instructed scheme participants who were in the US to flee across the border to Mexico.

The federal indictment has not yet named which specific Russian transnational criminal organization was behind this scheme. The organizers are also not named — it is only known that, according to the investigation, they operated outside the US.

Experts interviewed by the publication suggest that carrying out an operation of this magnitude without the support or at least tacit consent of the Russian authorities would have been virtually impossible.

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