Federal authorities carried out predawn raids across Southern California on Thursday and charged 15 people in a health care fraud case built around more than $1.8 billion in alleged fraudulent claims. Six of the defendants were medical professionals, and prosecutors said the case reached from sham substance abuse programs to unnecessary surgeries and phony hospice care.
The sweep is the sort of case that draws immediate attention because of the scale alone. Authorities said the claims were sent to government and private health insurance programs, and Colin McDonald said the charges include the largest sober home fraud scheme the department has ever prosecuted.
Among the defendants were Harold Tabaie, 78, of Anaheim, and Hany Malek, 61, of Tarzana, who were charged in an alleged $135 million scheme to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary atherectomies. Authorities said Malek posed as a medical doctor to diagnose patients with arterial disease and recommend the procedures even when they did not have the condition. Tabaie was accused of performing the operations, sometimes repeatedly on patients for whom earlier treatments had already failed.
That alleged scheme sits inside a broader crackdown that the Justice Department said was uncovered in part through data analytics. McDonald said the same methods helped expose unnecessary invasive procedures, a reminder that this case was not just about fraudulent billing but about patients who were reportedly put through extreme pain and discomfort while the money flowed through the system.
Malek also faces charges over allegedly fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications filed in 2021. Authorities said he claimed a 25% revenue loss for his business, then spent the money on personal expenses, family credit cards, other ventures and rare coins.
The immediate result is a wide federal case that ties together billing fraud, fake diagnoses and pandemic-era loan abuse in one sweep. What remains unresolved is how far the network reached beyond the defendants named Thursday, and how many other patients or claims may still be under scrutiny.
