One million Americans' Medicare numbers, and a $10.6bn catheter claim
The Justice Department's June 2025 health care fraud takedown charged 324 defendants over more than $14.6 billion in alleged fraud, the largest in its history. Two of its cases matter to consumers rather than to insurers: identity theft affecting more than a million Americans across all fifty states, and a $703 million scheme in which AI was allegedly used to fake beneficiaries' recorded consent. The charges are allegations, though some follow-on cases have since moved: two Operation Gold Rush defendants were extradited from Estonia in June 2026, and a former bank manager who laundered proceeds for the same organisation was sentenced to 18 months in August 2026.
- Year
- 2025
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Charged (an allegation, not a conviction)
- Reported loss
- $14.6 billion
- Victims
- 1,000,000
- Schemes
- Medicare and health insurance scams, Government impersonation
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-10
The facts, as recorded
- Announced 30 June 2025: 324 defendants charged, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and other licensed professionals, across 50 federal districts and 12 state attorneys general's offices.
- Over $14.6 billion in intended loss, the largest health care fraud takedown in Justice Department history, more than double the previous $6 billion record.
- Operation Gold Rush: 19 defendants charged over $10.6 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims for urinary catheters and other durable medical equipment.
- That scheme allegedly used the stolen identities of more than one million Americans across all 50 states.
- Medicare paid approximately $900 million on those claims; HHS-OIG and CMS prevented approximately $4.41 billion.
- A separate $703 million scheme charged in the Northern District of Illinois allegedly obtained beneficiaries' Medicare numbers through theft and deceptive marketing; approximately $418 million was paid.
- In that case, defendants allegedly used artificial intelligence to create fake recordings of Medicare beneficiaries purportedly consenting to receive products.
- 49 defendants were charged over more than $1.17 billion in allegedly fraudulent telemedicine and genetic testing claims.
- CMS prevented over $4 billion in payments and suspended or revoked billing privileges for 205 providers; over $245 million in cash, vehicles and cryptocurrency was seized.
- An indictment, information, or complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
- On 23 June 2026 the Justice Department said two other members of the Operation Gold Rush organisation, charged in the 2025 takedown, had been apprehended in Estonia, extradited to the United States and made their initial appearance in the Eastern District of New York on 12 June 2026.
- Renat Abramov, a former relationship manager at a Brooklyn bank branch who the Justice Department says acted as a "concierge banker" for the foreign-based organisation behind Operation Gold Rush, pleaded guilty in February 2026 to conspiracy to commit money laundering over more than $8 million in health care fraud proceeds, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison on 11 August 2026.
- The sources reviewed give no aggregate count of how many of the 324 defendants have since pleaded guilty, been convicted or been sentenced.
Why this case matters
Most health care fraud is a billing crime between a provider and an insurer, and no individual notices.
Two of the cases in this takedown are different, and they are why this scheme has a page on a site about scams rather than about corporate crime.
More than one million Americans’ identities, allegedly used to bill Medicare $10.6 billion for urinary catheters and other equipment. And a $703 million scheme in which the alleged mechanism for proving that beneficiaries had agreed to receive products was AI-generated recordings of them saying so.
What the numbers are, and are not
$14.6 billion is intended loss, what was allegedly billed, not what was taken. In Operation Gold Rush the distinction is stark: approximately $10.6 billion in claims, approximately $900 million actually paid, and approximately $4.41 billion prevented by HHS-OIG and CMS. In the Illinois case, $703 million claimed and approximately $418 million paid.
Those three numbers, claimed, paid, prevented, are routinely collapsed into one in reporting, and they mean different things. We record all three because the gap between them is the measure of how well the system worked.
The takedown itself: 324 defendants, 96 of them licensed medical professionals, across 50 federal districts and 12 state attorneys general’s offices. Over $245 million seized. Billing privileges suspended or revoked for 205 providers. The largest such action in the Justice Department’s history, more than doubling the previous $6 billion record.
Why your Medicare number is worth stealing
The consumer-facing lesson sits inside the identity theft figure.
A Medicare number is not a credential you use to spend money. It is a credential someone else uses to bill money, repeatedly, for years, without the number’s owner being involved in any transaction. There is no purchase for the beneficiary to notice, no statement they were watching, and often no consequence they experience at all until a claim they need is denied because the limit was already used.
That is what makes it different from a stolen card. A card gets cancelled when the fraud shows up. A Medicare number is not cancelled, cannot easily be changed, and the fraud shows up in a system the beneficiary does not read.
Which is why “never give your Medicare number to anyone who contacts you” is not the fussy advice it sounds like. The number is the product.
The AI consent recordings
The allegation in the Illinois case is worth stating precisely: that defendants used artificial intelligence to create fake recordings of Medicare beneficiaries purportedly consenting to receive certain products.
The recorded consent call exists as an anti-fraud control. It is the artefact an auditor asks for to establish that a beneficiary agreed. The allegation is that the control was manufactured, which makes this one of the clearest documented examples on this site of a verification mechanism being defeated by generating the evidence it asks for.
The caveat
The charges against the 324 defendants are allegations. An indictment, information or complaint is merely an allegation, and each defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, except where a court has since convicted them. At least one person tied to the Operation Gold Rush organisation, the bank manager Renat Abramov, has pleaded guilty and been sentenced for laundering its proceeds; the sources reviewed do not say whether he was among the 324 charged on 30 June 2025, and give no count of other pleas or verdicts. The AI consent-recording and identity-theft allegations described above have not been proven in any court we found.
Sources
- National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 324 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $14.6 Billion in Alleged Fraud. US Department of Justice. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The 30 June 2025 announcement, the 324 defendants, the $14.6bn total, Operation Gold Rush and its $10.6bn in claims and one million stolen identities, the $703m Illinois scheme and the AI-generated consent recordings, the telemedicine and genetic testing charges, the CMS prevention figures and the presumption of innocence.
- 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown. US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The HHS-OIG record of the same takedown and its role in preventing payment.
- 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown. US Department of Justice, Criminal Division. Accessed 2026-09-06. Supports: The Criminal Division's case listing and current status of the charged matters.
- National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 455 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $6.5 Billion in Intended Loss. US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Accessed 2026-10-10. Supports: The June 2026 report that two defendants charged in the 2025 takedown's Operation Gold Rush case were extradited from Estonia and appeared in the Eastern District of New York on 12 June 2026.
- Former Brooklyn Bank Manager Sentenced to Prison for Laundering Proceeds of Medicare Fraud for Transnational Criminal Organization. US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Accessed 2026-10-10. Supports: Renat Abramov's February 2026 guilty plea to money laundering conspiracy, his 18-month sentence, the more than $8 million laundered and his role in the Operation Gold Rush organisation's scheme.