NYC pharmacy owners charged with health care fraud
- The two men allegedly submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid
- The false claims amounted to $29 million in fraud
- The men owned four pharmacies in New York City boroughs
(Getty Images)
maylen
Brooklyn, NY (NewsNation) — A Brooklyn court unsealed an indictment against two pharmacy owners in an alleged fraud scheme targeting Medicare and Medicaid,
Taesung “Terry” Kim and Dacheng “Bruce” Lu partly owned and operated four pharmacies in Brooklyn and Flushing. According to the indictment, the two men submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary prescriptions and over-the-counter products that they did not actually provide to customers, submitting $29 million dollars of fraudulent claims.
The men are also accuse of conspiring with other who paid illegal kickbacks or bribes, including cash and supermarket gift certificates to Medicare and Medicaid recipients who filled their prescriptions at the pharmacies.
Kim and Lu are also accused of paying kickbacks and bribes to doctors who prescribed the unnecessary medications, usually in the form of rent and office staff.
According to the Department of Justice, the men laundered the money through shell companies to generate cash for themselves and conspirators, as well as to use when paying kickbacks to customers.
