A 43-year-old Indian national was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment in the US for a USD 2.8 million health care fraud, the US Department of Justice said.
According to court documents, Yogesh K Pancholi, the Indian national who owns a healthcare company called Shring Home Care Inc, purchased it using the names, signatures, and personal identifying information of others to conceal his ownership of the company, despite being excluded from billing Medicare, news agency PTI reported.
Over two months, Pancholi, a Michigan resident, and his accomplices submitted fraudulent claims, securing nearly USD 2.8 million in payments from Medicare for services never rendered, the federal prosecutors alleged.
Pancholi allegedly funneled these illicitly obtained funds through bank accounts associated with shell corporations, ultimately redirecting them into accounts located in India, PTI reported, citing the Department of Justice.
Upon indictment and just before the trial, Pancholi, adopting a pseudonym, composed false and defamatory emails. These emails were sent to various federal government agencies, accusing a government witness of multiple crimes. The intention was to impede the witness from testifying, according to statements from the Department of Justice.
The jury had convicted Pancholi in September last year of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud, two counts of substantive health care fraud, two counts of money laundering, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of witness tampering.
