From
The Miami Herald:
Medicare crooks find safe haven in CubaSouth Florida is known as the capital of Medicare fraud, but increasingly Cuba is where the scammers go to avoid prosecution.As Medicare crime spreads across South Florida, accused scammers are escaping in droves to Cuba and other Latin American countries to avoid prosecution — with more than 150 fugitives now wanted for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. healthcare program, according to the FBI and court records.
The tally of fugitives charged with healthcare fraud here has tripled since 2008, when The Miami Herald first reported on the phenomenon of Cuban immigrants joining the Medicare rackets and fleeing to evade trial in Miami.
But during the past three years, the FBI has captured only 16 fugitives, reflecting the difficulty in catching Spanish-speaking suspects who head south to hide out. Most of the fugitives were born in Cuba, immigrated to South Florida after 1990 and can easily live under the radar in Latin America with hundreds of thousands or millions in taxpayer dollars fleeced from Medicare.
Even if fugitives can be located in Cuba, there's no way to get them back because of the political realities at play.
"They go to Cuba so they can't be caught,'' said Rolando Betancourt, a longtime Miami bail bondsman who has tracked one Medicare fugitive to Havana. "You can find anybody in Cuba; you just can't arrest them.''Because so many of the Medicare defendants are Cuban, rumors have swirled for years that the Castro government has purposely trained and deployed immigrants to take over Medicare-licensed clinics in South Florida, and then harbored them after they returned home. But federal agents and prosecutors, while privately speculating about an official Cuba connection, say they've never uncovered evidence linking Fidel and Raul Castro's regime to the rampant healthcare fraud on this side of the Florida Straits.
Moreover, the feds have made no official attempts to seek extradition of fugitives in Cuba, mainly because the United States has no formal relations with the government. Agents have captured some Cuban fugitives returning from the island as they travel through Miami International Airport.
Repeated calls and emails seeking comment from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., were not returned.
Earlier this year, a University of Miami report quoted a former Cuban intelligence official who suggested there were "strong indications" his government was either facilitating the Medicare fraud or providing safe harbor for fugitives in exchange for hard U.S. currency. But the report provided no examples.
Soon afterward, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a Medicare watchdog for years, questioned Health and Human Services officials at a congressional hearing about the possible Cuban government link after the department's inspector general posted a
"Most Wanted" list of Medicare fugitives, and seven of the top 10 were Cuban.CURRENCY FOR CUBACuba watchers, legal experts and others who have witnessed South Florida's ascendance as the nation's Medicare fraud capital say the Cuban government's involvement would not be that far fetched — though they have no proof to back it up."It wouldn't surprise me if one day that is proven to be a fact," said Miami attorney Sam Rabin. One of his clients, Eduardo Moreno, fled to Cuba after posting a $450,000 bond in 2007 on healthcare fraud charges. He had collected $2 million from Medicare on bogus claims for medical equipment and HIV services."I think it would be very hard for someone with millions in currency to stay under the radar in Cuba" without that government's protection, Rabin added.Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said he has heard from sources in Miami and Cuba allegations that the Castro government extorts Medicare bounty from criminals who are allowed to go back and forth between here and the island nation. But he said he knows of no evidence directly implicating the Castro regime in the fraud.
"The Cuban government knows what's going on," Gomez said. "The government knows who the fugitives are, and the bigger they are, the more the government expects to be paid by them... It's a way to obtain hard currency and a way to discredit the Cuban-American exile community."
James Cason, who served as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 2002-2005, said he was not aware of the fugitive phenomenon during his tenure, but noted that relaxed travel restrictions in recent years have enabled Cubans to fly more easily between Havana and Miami. He said it's highly probable that the Cuban government shakes down Medicare fraud fugitives, but doubts its direct involvement in the healthcare scams.
"There is no way the Cuban government wouldn't know about this," said Cason, who was recently elected mayor of Coral Gables. "Whether the Cuban government is involved or not [in Medicare fraud], the Cuban government wants the hard currency from the fugitives."Cason called the Medicare offenders "scammers, not revolutionaries," saying the FBI should try to work with the Justice and State departments to engage Cuba in extraditing some of the fugitives.
"The Cuban government will investigate if they think it's in their interest," he said. "But I bet the FBI hasn't asked them."
Officials for the FBI and Justice declined to comment. A spokesman for the State Department also declined to comment on Medicare fraud fugitives, but said that the federal government has sought the extradition of fugitives in Cuba wanted for other serious crimes.
