OPINION | MYRIAM MARQUEZ
Medicare crooks like Cuba -- why?
BY MYRIAM MARQUEZ
mmarquez@MiamiHerald.com
What would make Darvis Lázaro Leal think he could get back to Miami
after skipping out to Cuba while under investigation for healthcare fraud?
Leal, 30, returned last week from Cuba via Costa Rica. He was
immediately arrested at Miami International Airport on a warrant issued
last year on an indictment under seal on charges of operating a pharmacy
in 2006 that filed $425,000 in false Medicare claims for medical
supplies that were never prescribed by doctors or used by patients.
What would make Jorge Ramirez, a former owner of a Miami clinic that
treated blood disorders and was charged with defrauding Medicare of --
gulp -- $42.2 million, think he could get back here after taking off for
Cuba?
$420 MILLION FRAUD
Ramirez, 41, was allegedly working with others the FBI believes are back
in Cuba after defrauding -- big gulp -- $420 million from Medicare. The
phony claims involved 85 medical equipment companies that never provided
a wheelchair, a respirator or any other life-saving equipment to a
single patient. Ramirez was arrested at the airport on Dec. 12 and his
case is pending. His two co-defendants are -- where else? -- in Cuba.
As Miami Herald reporter Jay Weaver's Medicare Racket series exposed
last year, at least half of South Florida's Medicare fugitives are
believed to be back in Cuba. There are at least 60 Cuban scam artists
believed to have collectively bilked more than a billion dollars from
taxpayers through medical businesses that helped no one. They took off
to Cuba when the government started to put 2 and 2 million together.
That it took so long to figure out that clinics weren't treating
patients and equipment companies weren't selling equipment is another
example of the federal bureaucratic maze that strangles us with
skyrocketing insurance fees and Medicare costs. Without targeting
sufficient federal money to investigate medical companies and healthcare
providers at the front end, we end up chasing after fat-cat crooks once
they've cashed in their government checks.
It's lunacy.
The most notorious are the Benitez brothers -- Carlos, Luis and Jose --
who are accused of filing $119 million in false claims for HIV infusion
therapy, a treatment that's questionable at best and no longer standard
practice. They were living the good life in the Dominican Republic --
all on the backs of taxpayers who actually work and pay our taxes.
When the feds went after them in Santo Domingo, they ran off
to -- conga drums, please --
Cuba.
A CLOSED SOCIETY
So what would make these folks -- most of them who arrived in
the 1990s -- think they can break the law and then fly back like
tourists?
It's a question that nags because Cuba is a closed society. Leaving it,
legally at least, isn't easy. Ask any poor rafter who made it out alive.
There are thousands in Cuba who have U.S. visas, but the Cuban regime
has yet to issue exit papers.
Leal allegedly got $260,918 in Medicare payments. That's a lot of money
to spend in Cuba, where the average salary is $20 a month. He supposedly
was a clothing salesman, selling goods to and from Cuba and Costa Rica.
Uh-huh.
Sure, call it just another exile conspiracy theory. But after 50 years
of Castro rule, after dozens of American felons and murderers have been
welcomed with open arms in Havana, it's not far-fetched that Medicare
scammers would
be living the high life in Cuba
with a nod from the Castro
brothers.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/myriam-marquez/story/890482.html
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