$37000 insurance fraud

A Bay Shore man and two accomplices have been arrested and charged with defrauding a Minnesota insurance company of $37,000 in commissions, police said Friday.

Peter Ezagui, 25, of Monroe Avenue, was charged with second-degree insurance fraud and second-degree grand larceny, detectives said.

Two accomplices Kevin Huhn, 26, of Shelly Place, East Meadow, and James Connolly, 29, of Bayview Avenue, Bayville, were both charged with third-degree grand larceny and falsifying business records.

Police said Hugh and Connolly purchased a total of $1.7 million in insurance through Ezagui, who posed as an insurance agent with the Allianz insurance company of Minneapolis from January 2006 to September 2008.



All their checks for the insurance contracts bounced, detectives said, but not before Ezagui collected his $37,000 in commission for the sales.



http://www.newsday.com/

A year jail for former police

A former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail upon pleading guilty to insurance fraud and filing a false police report, in which he claimed he was shot outside his home.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norm Shapiro ordered Anthony Razo, 49, to surrender Thursday at the East Los Angeles sheriff's station to begin serving the jail term.

Razo also was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay $5,400 in restitution to the LAPD's Hollenbeck Division, which held a fundraiser to help pay his medical bills.

Razo admitted that he falsely reported his car stolen on Jan. 4 and made fraudulent claims against his auto and homeowners' insurance policies for the car and its contents, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Razo also fabricated his claim that two men assaulted him in his driveway on Jan. 31 and used his gun to shoot him, admitting that he shot himself, prosecutors said.

Razo was relieved of duty in March and has since resigned.



http://www.contracostatimes.com/

Taiwan cracked down insurance fraud

Taipei, April 9 (CNA) Dozens of medical institutions and professionals in southern Taiwan were found of defrauding more than NT$70 million (US$2.09 million) from the National Health Insurance program in over 100,000 cases in an investigation conducted during the first three months of this year, a spokesman for the Tainan Public Prosecutors Office said Thursday.

Although almost all the cases occurred in Tainan and Kaohsiung cities, the spokesman said, they represent only "the tip of the iceberg" in the widespread problem of fraud against the insurance system by medical institutions in the country.

Those accused of being involved in the insurance fraud cases include the Department of Health (DOH) -governed Tainan Hospital Hsinhua Branch, 10 private clinics, five pharmaceutical stores and about 70 nursing homes, as well as two clinic owners, 19 medical doctors, seven pharmacists, and four medical service brokers, according to the spokesman.

The Tainan District Court granted a prosecutors' request to detain 12 suspects. Fourteen others have been released on bail, the spokesman added.

During raids of the medical institutions, investigators removed a batch of patient records and questioned 22 people, including nine physicians at the DOH Tainan Hospital, the first time a public hospital was suspected to have been involved in fraud, according to the spokesman.

The nine medical professionals, including three active executives and six former physicians at the hospital, were suspected of colluding with scores of local nursing homes to defraud the national health care program of NT$30 million between 2006 and 2008 by issuing a large number of chronic illness prescription refill slips, according to spokesman.

The nine doctors have been released on NT$800,000-NT$1 million bail after admitting to committing fraud, the spokesman said. They had claimed they were under pressure to reach their business targets set by the hospital to avoid being fired, the spokesman added.

However, the hospital issued a statement Thursday denying that it had pressed doctors to meet revenue objectives, adding that some of the accused were contracted doctors and were unlikely to be under work performance pressure.

Using fake prescriptions is a common fraud practice against the national health insurance system, the spokesman added.

Taiwan News

Insurance fraud case for Missisippi doctor

The insurance fraud management found a news about A Jackson doctor has been arrested following an insurance fraud investigation, announced Attorney General Jim Hood today at Jackson,Mississippi.

Dr. Larry Cruel (age 44) was arrested this morning by investigators with the Attorney General's Office, Insurance Integrity Unit, on one count of insurance fraud and one count of wire fraud. Dr. Cruel is accused of submitting false claims to Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Dr. Cruel, who is a podiatrist at Advanced Foot Care located at 4510 Office Park Drive Jackson, MS, faces up to three years and a fine of $5,000 or the value of the fraud, whichever is greater, for the insurance fraud charge and up to five years and a fine of $10,000 for the wire fraud charge.

Dr. Cruel was taken to the Rankin County Jail. Judge Kent McDaniels, Rankin County Circuit Court, set his bond at $30,000. A court date has not yet been set and an insurance fraud investigation is still going. As with all cases, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

http://www.workerscompensation.com/compnewsnetwork/