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Dear Friend –
Should the government check for fraud before sending taxpayer dollars out the door?
Let me know what you think:
Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?
Klepto-currency Creating a New Class of Robber Barons.
Klepto-currency is creating a whole new class of robber barons who are becoming billionaires by helping themselves to the money Washington is taking out of the paychecks of hardworking Americans, like you.
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders famously stated, “billionaires shouldn’t exist,” and wants to tax them away, while government grift and graft is making billionaires out of riffraff.
In fact, the $500 billion the Democrats’ proposed “billionaire tax” would bring in isn’t even enough to pay the total cost of the $523 billion the government gives away to fraudsters every year.
“I had everything. I had houses, I had cars, I had watches,” says a Medicare mobster who scammed the program for over a decade before getting turned in. “It’s just so easy. It’s unbelievable.”
This Medicare mobster says ripping off the program is “just so easy. It’s unbelievable.”
Fraudsters are getting away with stealing more than $1.4 billion from taxpayers every single day.
Over $100 billion is bilked every year from Medicare and Medicaid, the government health insurance programs for the elderly, disabled, and disadvantaged.
Another $1 billion is ripped off from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
And over $100 billion of fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits were paid to scammers over three years, between 2020 and 2023.
Fraudsters are literally playing “Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?” with your tax dollars.
Using foreign call centers and fraudulent doctors’ orders, con artist Brett Blackman exploited senior citizens to bill government health care programs for $1 billion of bogus orthotic braces and other unnecessary medical equipment. More than $450 million of the claims were paid.
This billion-dollar bandit even flaunted his fraud-financed affluence in a music video at his mansion while wearing a giant gold dollar sign necklace, a gold hat, and gold sunglasses.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quiñones called Blackman’s con job “a billion-dollar fraud machine,” noting “taxpayers were robbed” and “programs meant to care for the elderly, veterans, servicemembers, and families were treated like a cash register.”
Fraudmogging: Billion-dollar bandit Brett Blackman flaunts his fraud-financed affluence, including a gold dollar sign necklace, outside the mansion paid for by looting Medicare.
A con-artist couple, Alexandra Gehrke and her husband Jeffrey King, submitted $1.2 billion of fraudulent claims for unnecessary wound grafts to Medicare, TRICARE (the health care program for U.S. servicemembers and their families), CHAMPVA (the health care program for spouses and children of permanently disabled veterans). Dying and elderly patients with wounds of any kind were sought out as part of the scheme. Seven patients died on the very same day as the procedures were performed. The grifters even applied grafts to non-existent wounds.
About $615 million of the bogus claims were paid to the fraudsters. The money was spent on four luxury vehicles collectively costing nearly $1 million as well as jewelry and real estate.
They put the con in convertible with a Ferrari 488 Spider convertible and a Mercedes-Benz AMG Roadster. Their scam-mobile collection also included a Mercedes-Benz 4x4 Squared G-Wagon and a Mercedes-Benz GLE.
They also bought a $6.2 million mansion, along with a second home, over $348,000 worth of gold and silver bars and coins, a $10,000 gold Cartier cigarette lighter, Rolex watches, gold bracelets, and other high-end jewelry. The couple were wearing gold bracelets and $30,000 watches when they were arrested.
The U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case says, as the mastermind of the scheme, “Gehrke set up companies to facilitate her illegal referrals, wooed co-conspirators with promises of immediate riches, and devised a business model that rewarded greed at the expense of patient care.” The deviant duo targeted hospice patients on their deathbeds because, in Gehrke’s words, that’s “where the most money is at.”
This diabolical duo fraudulently billed nearly $1 billion to health care programs for applying unnecessary wound grafts to elderly and dying patients.
A Las Vegas woman bet big by billing $1 billion of fraudulent health care claims to Medicare and TRICARE. Using a system of bribes and kickbacks, Marizel Yukee applied medically unnecessary and expensive wound treatments to seniors and other patients on their death beds and submitted claims to Medicare for more than $1 million per patient. Some of the wounds she “treated” were left infected, and others had already healed. Yukee was paid $297 million for the fraudulent claims.
She spent the loot on eight expensive cars, jewelry, and real estate. This includes $4.6 million for the construction of a beach resort in the Philippines, a $594,000 Ferrari 296 GTS, and an $865,000 Bulgari necklace.
Yukee has now traded in the expensive jewelry for a much less glamorous GPS ankle monitor.
Medically unnecessary treatments on hospice patients billed to government health care programs paid for a $865,000 Bulgari necklace and a $4.6 million beach resort.
Fraudster Fashions: Marizel Yukee once wore expensive jewelry. Now she wears a GPS ankle monitor.
Brian Rowan, a sales exec for a wound care company, also orchestrated a $1.2 billion scheme to defraud government health care programs using kickbacks, bribes, and sham sales invoices. As part of the sinister plot, vulnerable senior citizens, many of whom were terminally ill in hospice care, were given medically unnecessary skin treatments without consulting with their doctors or protecting against infections. About $614 million of the bogus bills were paid over three years before the conspirators were caught. The stolen money funded multi-million-dollar mansions, lavish watches, and extravagant vehicles, including a $135,000 Maserati.
Using identities stolen from elderly and disabled Americans, Erekle Gugava, an illegal alien living in the U.S., submitted at least $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare and other health insurers over just six months. The Medicare mobster made off with $6.5 million and laundered the tax dollars overseas to the Russian mob before he fled the country.
His scheme was stopped by the identity theft victims who alerted Medicare they received benefit forms listing medical equipment they did not receive, prescribed by doctors they did not visit. Had it not been for these vigilant seniors, this bandit would still be billing for billions of tax dollars to benefit the Russian mob.
This illegal alien billed more than $1 billion of bogus health care claims in just six months, then laundered the loot to the Russian mob before he fled the country.
Another gang of Russian mobsters made off with nearly $1 billion by billing for medical supplies, primarily urinary catheters. They submitted requests for reimbursement to Medicare for over $10.6 billion using the stolen identities of thousands of doctors and more than a million senior citizens, including some who are deceased. While most of the claims were not paid, they laundered money they did steal overseas, using cryptocurrency to conceal the trail.
A group of grifters masquerading as medical supply providers submitted $3.7 billion of fraudulent claims for orthotic braces, glucose monitors, and wound dressings to government-funded health care programs. They managed to get $5.7 million before authorities caught on to the con job. The ringleader, Ibrahim Khaldoon Hilmi, fled to Turkey, where he was arrested. His comrade, Nika Machutadze, a Russian citizen, transferred more than $4.3 million to China and booked a flight for the United Arab Emirates days before he was arrested.
Herbert Leon Kimble led a scheme that fraudulently billed Medicare more than $1.2 billion for orthopedic braces. Using foreign telemarketing call centers, hundreds of thousands of elderly or disabled patients were “lured” into accepting “free or low-cost” back, shoulder, wrist, and knee braces that were not medically necessary, but were billed to Medicare.
The plot pulled in more than $200 million of payments. The stolen money was laundered through international shell corporations and used to purchase exotic automobiles, yachts, and luxury real estate.
Days after being added to the FBI’s “Most Wanted Fraudster” list, Kimble was captured in the Philippines and taken into custody.
This billion-dollar bandit who billed Medicare for more than $1.2 billion in bogus claims was caught hiding in the Philippines days after being put on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list.
More than $21 billion was fraudulently billed to taxpayers in just these handful of cases, and more than $3.1 billion of those bogus charges was actually paid to the fraudsters.
The New Robber Barons
For too long, Washington has focused on taxing your money and giving it away without even checking to see who is taking it.
While some Americans will be fortunate enough to earn a few million dollars over a lifetime, Washington is literally making these scammers instant billionaires off the backs of the working class. Yet, you never hear socialists ranting about this unfair redistribution of wealth.
Meanwhile, the money that working Americans and seniors are paying into Medicare intended for health care is financing mansions for mobsters, luxury cars and con-vertibles for crooks, and swanky lifestyles for swindlers.
When the socialists demand, “Medicare for All,” apparently, they really mean it, even if that includes Russian mobsters and the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters.
That is why I am giving my September 2026 Squeal Award to the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Trump administration is taking down this class of billionaire robber barons, one by one.
I’m doing my part by leading the effort in the Senate. My Protecting American Taxpayers Act would stop fraud before it occurs, recover stolen money, and hold criminals accountable. I’m calling on even the socialists in Congress to support this bill to banish the burgeoning class of robber bandits becoming billionaires.
When the socialists demand, “Medicare for All,” apparently, they really mean it, even if that includes Russian mobsters and the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters.
Squeal Award: Democratic Socialists of America
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Thank you!
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