Azerbaijani national convicted in US in $8 million healthcare fraud

A dual-citizen of Azerbaijan and the US has been convicted of conspiring to launder more than $8 million in funds acquired from Medicare fraud at a New York City bank. Renat Abramov pleaded guilty to the charges on Tuesday; he now faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Abramov, who worked as a bank manager in the New York City neighbourhood of Sheepshead Bay, ‘used his position to aid a sophisticated international scheme’, the US Justice Department said.

He ‘was a member of a TCO [transnational criminal organisation] that allegedly submitted more than $10 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims by stealing the identities of over one million Americans, including elderly and disabled citizens in all 50 states’.

‘Abramov helped execute the scheme by opening bank accounts for individuals — many not lawfully present in the United States — who posed as owners of fake medical equipment companies using fake corporate registration documents. The bank accounts were used to deposit fraudulently obtained insurance checks, which appeared legitimate because they came from Medicare and established insurance companies. Once deposited, members of the TCO transferred the money into offshore accounts and cryptocurrency’, the Justice Department said.

Abramov’s conviction was ‘the first time the Health Care Fraud Unit has charged and convicted a former bank employee for conspiring to launder health care fraud proceeds’.