Alberto Noriega Sentenced to Federal Prison for Leading a Medicare Fraud Ring That Submitted More Than $9 Million in False and Fraudulent Medicare Claims for Alleged Infusion Therapy Services

Source- http://houston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/ho030711.htm

HOUSTON—Alberto Noriega, of Miami, Florida, has been sentenced to federal prison for leading a Medicare fraud ring that submitted more than $9 million in false and fraudulent Medicare claims for alleged infusion therapy services, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. sentenced Noriega, 49, at a hearing on Friday, March 4, 2011, in Houston to 63 months in federal prison without parole, to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Judge Werlein further ordered Noriega to pay $1,440,367.00 in restitution to the victimized insurance companies.

Noriega was indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston on June 24, 2010, and was arrested by federal law enforcement agents in Miami on July 1, 2010. He has been in federal custody without bond since his arrest and will remain in custody pending transfer to a Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated in the near future, where he will serve out his sentence.

Noriega pleaded guilty on Dec. 10, 2010, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. According to information presented in court, from at least December 2008 through at least February 2010, Noriega and numerous co-conspirators executed a health care fraud scheme originating in the state of Florida, specifically targeting the Medicare Advantage Plan (MAP). MAP is a health care benefit program that allows Medicare beneficiaries to obtain their benefits through private insurance companies rather than through the traditional Medicare program. From Florida, Noriega dispatched numerous co-conspirators, including Cuban nationals, to various cities in Texas and across the southeastern United States, including Houston and McAllen, Texas; Jackson, Miss.; Atlanta, Ga.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Miami, to serve as “nominee” or “straw” owners for infusion therapy clinics that would purportedly operate in these cities. These individuals were referred to as nominee owners because their involvement was limited to signing paperwork to set up the clinics, while Noriega, in actuality, controlled them. Noriega’s infusion therapy clinics would purportedly offer infusion therapy, injection therapy and other expensive medical treatment designed to treat patients suffering from cancer, HIV, and AIDS.

To set up the clinics, the nominee owners—acting at Noriega’s direction—would incorporate the clinics in the states in which they purportedly operated. However, none of the clinics had actual business locations or any personnel; the clinics existed only on paper. The primary business locations of the clinics were UPS store mailboxes, which were rented by the nominee owners. For each clinic, using the address of the rented mailbox and the identity of the nominee owner among other information, Noriega would obtain a National Provider Identifier (NPI) through Medicare. The NPI was used by Medicare to identify medical providers and was needed by a provider to submit claims to the insurance companies providing MAP coverage for Medicare beneficiaries.

Over time, Noriega and his co-conspirators submitted approximately $9,129,420 in false and fraudulent infusion therapy claims to seven insurance companies providing coverage under MAP, including Aetna, Cigna, WellPoint, Healthnet, Humana, United Healthcare, and Sterling Healthcare. To submit the claims, Noriega used genuine Medicare beneficiary information—including names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth—that he illegally obtained from a number of sources. The claims were also falsified to include diagnoses that the Medicare beneficiaries did not have and listed expensive infusion therapy services that were never performed. The insurance companies would subsequently issue reimbursement checks to the clinics, which would be deposited into bank accounts that were opened by the nominee owners. The fraud proceeds would later be funneled back to Noriega and his co-conspirators in Florida through a variety of means.

For signing corporate records, renting mailboxes and opening bank accounts, Noriega paid the nominee owners large sums of cash. As part of their agreement with Noriega, however, the nominee owners were required to leave the United States after they completed their work in setting up the false clinics. Many of the nominee owners fled to Cuba to avoid extradition to the United States, as there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. However, Noriega’s primary co-conspirator, Miguel Miranda, 44, of Miami, was apprehended by federal law enforcement agents in Miami on Jan. 14, 2010. Miranda has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in Jackson, Miss. He is scheduled to be sentenced in Jackson on Mar. 9, 2011.


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