Judge in Miami orders man to forfeit over $187M after $463M Medicare fraud scheme

The Justice Department released a photo of a red Ferrari that was part of an asset forfeiture case related to Medicare fraud. (Copyright 2023 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.)

MIAMI – Federal agents were seizing a millionaire’s property after already taking over $30 million from his bank accounts, a Ferrari Spider, and a Land Rover Range Rover.

The asset forfeiture operation stems from a case that Nicole Argentieri, a federal prosecutor, described as “one of the largest genetic testing fraud cases ever tried to verdict.”

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Jeffrey Veltri, the special agent in charge of the FBI Miami Field Office, described the millionaire, Minal Patel, as the brains behind “a complex” operation that stole over $187 million from U.S. taxpayers.

Julie Rivera, the special agent in charge of The Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, accused Patel of trying to steal $463 million from Medicare.

Patel owned LabSolutions LLC, a company that through a clinical medical laboratory submitted fraudulent claims for genetic cancer risk testing to Medicare from 2016 to 2019, court records show.

LabSolutions contracted patient brokers who worked at call centers to market to Medicare beneficiaries and pay telemedicine companies for robo-signed prescriptions, court records show.

During a recent hearing at the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami, U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz, ordered Patel to forfeit what Medicare paid.

Earlier this year, Patel was sentenced to 27 years in prison after a federal jury convicted him of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, three counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to pay and receive illegal health care kickbacks, four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marx Calderon handled the asset forfeiture proceedings.


About the Author
Andrea Torres headshot

The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.

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