MIAMI – A man used his Hialeah companies to launder nearly $2 million as part of a larger, $41 million Medicare fraud scheme, according to a federal criminal complaint.
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Agents said Edelberto Borges Morales, 62, was detained and questioned about the scheme before he boarded a flight to Cuba on Thursday. But instead of the island nation, he landed in a federal jail cell.
According to the complaint, the scheme involved fraudulent claims for durable medical equipment — or DME.
Authorities allege that three South Florida medical equipment companies, One-Star Professional Services Inc., Med-Union Medical Center, Inc. and Vida Med Center LLC, billed Medicare a total of $41 million for equipment “that was never provided.”
Investigators said none of the supposed beneficiaries of the equipment “had heard of the company that had purportedly provided them with DME, nor had they heard of or had a relationship with the listed prescribing physician on the billing information provided by these companies as reflected in their Medicare claims data.”
“Each of the beneficiaries interviewed stated that they did not need or receive the DME that was purportedly prescribed to them,” the complaint states.
Additionally, a doctor listed by One Star as a prescriber said he “never heard of One Star,” hasn’t practiced medicine in One Star’s listed headquarters of Medley since 2014, “and did not prescribe DME to any of the patients he purportedly treated according to One Star’s Medicare claims data.”
More than 95% of the billing was “for procedure billing codes related to skin grafts and the application of skin substitute grafts,” authorities allege, but none of the supposed beneficiaries “needed or had suffered injuries requiring skin grafts.”
“They prescribed so many skin grafts they must think I am a whale,” agents said one of them told investigators.
According to the complaint, $1.9 million in funds from the scheme were laundered through Borges’ “shell companies”: RX Exclusive and GBT Max, both incorporated Oct. 16, 2024, and A&MTX Group, incorporated five days later. All are registered to the same address, an office building at 1275 W. 47th Place in Hialeah.
The DME companies all sent checks to Borges’ companies, investigators said.
Authorities looked into Borges’ travel and found that he traveled between Cuba and Miami about 35 times in a two-year period, concluding that some of the checks his companies received were likely cashed while he was on the island.
Agents said as they questioned him Thursday before he tried to board a flight to Varadero, he “claimed that an individual approached him and offered him money to be the listed owner of two unrelated businesses” and “denied any knowledge of being the listed owner and denied cashing any of the approximately $2 million in checks,” despite having photos of blank One Star checks on his phone.
Borges claimed he had the photos “because he suspected that the individual was asking him to do could someday get him in trouble,” the complaint states.
“When asked about his country of residence, (Borges) claimed that he lives in the United States but that he was spending significant time in Cuba due to the need to assist a family member,” it states.
Borges may now spend significant time in federal prison: His charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering carries a maximum 20-year sentence.
As of Friday, he was being held in the downtown Miami Federal Detention Center. His online federal court file did not list bond information or upcoming court dates.
The case is being prosecuted in Miami federal court.
Read the complaint: