By CECILIA OLOGUNAGBA

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday announced charges against 21 persons, who allegedly participated in COVID-19 medical fraud schemes that earned them almost 150 million dollars.

The 21 defendants were charged in nine federal districts across the country.

Kevin Chambers, Director for COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement, in a statement, said COVID-19 healthcare fraud enforcement involved extraordinary efforts to prosecute some of the largest and most wide-ranging pandemic frauds detected to date.

“The scale and complexity of the schemes prosecuted on Wednesday illustrate the success of our unprecedented interagency effort to quickly investigate and prosecute those who abuse our critical health care programmes,” he stated.

Some of the defendants are healthcare professionals who used personal information and saliva, or blood samples provided by people seeking COVID-19 testing to submit fraudulent medical care claims.

The claims were for more expensive tests that were never performed.

Another took advantage of relaxed telemedicine rules to bill for telemedicine encounters that never occurred.

The Justice Department said it seized more than eight million dollars in cash and other fraud proceeds from those charged. (NAN)