An Indian national has been convicted by a federal jury in Michigan for orchestrating a USD 2.8 million healthcare fraud and engaging in money laundering.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Yogesh Pancholi, 43, owned and operated Shring Home Care Inc, a home health company based in the US state of Michigan.
Despite being excluded from billing Medicare, Mr Pancholi purchased Shring using the names, signatures, and personal identifying information of others to conceal his ownership of the company, a statement said.
In a two-month period, Mr Pancholi and his co-conspirators billed and were paid nearly USD 2.8 million by Medicare for services that were never provided.
Mr Pancholi then transferred these funds through bank accounts belonging to shell corporations and eventually into his accounts in India.
After being indicted, and on the eve of trial, Mr Pancholi, using a pseudonym, wrote false and malicious emails to various federal government agencies alleging a government witness had committed various crimes and should not be allowed to remain in the US in an attempt to keep the witness from testifying, federal prosecutors said.
The federal jury in the Eastern District of Michigan convicted Mr Pancholi of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud, two counts of substantive health care fraud, two counts of money laundering, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of witness tampering.
The sentencing is scheduled for January 10.
He faces a mandatory minimum penalty of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each of the conspiracy and witness tampering convictions, and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each of the healthcare fraud and money laundering counts.
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