Month: February 2019

"Birth Tourism" Arrests Beg the Question: Why did Feds Wait So Long?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

birth tourism
New American anchor babies here we come!

You might have seen the news about the big federal bust of a Chinese fraud ring responsible for bringing in pregnant Chinese women to give birth so that their babies would have US citizenship, but why is this the first big bust?
This scam on America has been going on probably for decades. I’ve been hearing about it for more then ten years!

I repeat: Why did the US government permit this to go on so long? (long enough for the perps to become millionaires!).

 
Here is the Fox News story, but for more of the disgusting details see the Department of Justice press release, here.

19 charged in Chinese ‘birth tourism’ crackdown: US prosecutors

Federal authorities charged 19 people on Thursday in the first crackdown on birth tourism businesses, which prosecutors say bring hundreds of pregnant women from China to the United States.
Among the arrested were Dongyuan Li, 41, whose business was called “You Win USA,” which coached pregnant Chinese women on how to get into the United States to deliver babies. Those infants would then enjoy all the benefits of American citizenship. Over two years, she raked in millions through her business, where mothers-to-be paid between $40,000 and $80,000 each to come to California, stay in an upscale apartment and give birth, authorities said.
Jing Dong, 42, and Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, who allegedly operated “USA Happy Baby,” also were arrested.
More than a dozen others, including the operator of another such business, also face charges but are believed to have returned to China, said the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
“America’s way of life is not for sale,” said Joseph Macias, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles, in a statement to Fox News.
Homeland Security “will aggressively target those who would make a mockery of our laws and our values to benefit and enrich themselves.”
[….]
While it isn’t illegal to visit the United States while pregnant, authorities said the businesses — which were raided by federal agents in 2015 — touted the benefits of having U.S. citizen babies, who could get free public education and years later help their parents immigrate.

More here.
Chinese baby
Be sure to see the DOJ press release with more gory details.
Note that many of those whose indictments are now unsealed have left the country.
Here is one paragraph that you need to see which tells you that our Justice Department took a helluva long time to go after these Chinese crooks.

You Win USA!

The federal investigation into Dongyuan Li’s You Win USA scheme has resulted in seizure and/or forfeiture proceedings against three real properties with millions of dollars in equity, including her $2.1 million residence in Irvine; six vehicles, including four Mercedes Benz vehicles; more than $1 million from bank accounts; and many gold bars and coins.

By the way, China is not the only country sending its nationals to the US for this scam, I see that the Russians are doing it as well.  And, I am sure those two countries are not alone in taking advantage of us.

question markWhat should you do?
Spread this news as far and wide as you can, don’t allow it to be a flash-in-the-pan national story!
Thinking about running for political office? You could and should build your whole campaign around fighting fraud!  It would be a winner!

Trial Begins February 11th in Largest Medicare Fraud Bust in US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

The case involves American crooks, nursing homes, doctors, hospital workers, and over a billion in lost taxpayer dollars.
Editor: One of my readers is urging me to write something about American frauds, crooks and criminals so I’ve picked this news about a case the federal government says is its largest bust (so far). (Incidentally, the charity fraud posts like the one I wrote about yesterday are about Americans too!)
Today’s story is about former ‘one-percenter’ Philip Esformes and his father Rabbi Morris Esformes and their nursing home empire.
From the Miami Herald on Tuesday,

Once among the ‘1 percent,’ executive faces $1 billion Medicare fraud trial

 

Not long ago, Miami Beach executive Philip Esformes was living quite comfortably among America’s “1 percent,” raking in millions from his healthcare business, gobbling up pricey real estate and darting around the country in chartered jets.

Philip Esformes
Philip Esformes has been held behind bars since his arrest in July 2016.

Then, in a flash, his luxurious lifestyle went poof: FBI agents arrested Esformes in July 2016 and he suddenly became the poster boy for the biggest Medicare fraud case in the country. He was charged with bilking $1 billion out of the federal healthcare program for the elderly and disabled, while his vast business assets and bank accounts were frozen. Worse, Esformes, 50, was ordered held without bail at the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
Esformes was back in court Monday for one final hearing before he goes to trial by himself on Feb. 11. Once always tan and fit, he looked wan and frail as his defense team tried in vain to delay the start of trial. They sought more time to review the Justice Department’s long list of patients who prosecutors say received no services or medically unnecessary treatment at Esformes’ Miami-Dade chain of skilled-nursing and assisted-living facilities.
[….]
Esformes is standing trial alone because all of his co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty, including a physician’s assistant, Arnaldo Carmouze, and a former Larkin Community Hospital outpatient director, Odette Barcha. In January, both admitted that they recycled Medicare patients through the hospital and Esformes’ network of nursing homes and ALFs in an elaborate bribery scheme that prosecutors say was orchestrated by the healthcare executive.
Carmouze, 59, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Medicare by accepting bribes for making patient referrals to Larkin and Esformes’ healthcare facilities. Barcha, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay bribes to physicians to refer patients to Larkin and receiving kickbacks herself to move patients into Esformes’ facilities.

Read the story, the list of charges is stunning, including this one:

Screenshot (860)
See a timeline of more than two decades of scams involving Philip and his father Rabbi Morris Esformes here: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-esformes-timeline-met-20161002-story.html

Esformes is also accused of referring his own network of patients to convicted healthcare-fraud offenders, including Guillermo and Gabriel Delgado, who are serving prison time. The brothers admitted swindling Medicare for mental-health, prescription-drug, and home-healthcare services, and they ultimately helped federal investigators target the Miami Beach executive.
According to the indictment, the brothers paid some kickbacks for the patients by disguising them as payments for escort services for Esformes as well as related travel and hotel expenses.
Esformes was also charged with obstructing justice because prosecutors say he plotted in 2015 with the Delgado brothers to help one of them leave Miami for Israel to avoid trial.

More here.
For those interested in more on the cheaters, see this local news story from 2016 about divorce court proceedings where Philip’s ex-wife said he believed that “money is king.”

Accused wealthy fraudster’s alleged parenting style: ‘Money is king’

The federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force was involved in the extensive investigation.

question markAre you keeping tabs of loved ones in nursing homes? Are they receiving treatment they don’t need while the facility bills Medicare? Or are they perhaps keeping a rehab patient longer than is necessary simply to milk the system, a system that is predicted to be insolvent by 2026?

Imagine “Medicare for all” that the Dems continue to clamor for!
 

Utica, NY and the New American Economy's Propaganda

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

Editor:  Frauds and Crooks is one month old today!
On January first, when I welcomed you to my new blog, I said my first priority was to counter the media reports that have begun to spew from the Open Borders propaganda machine about how migrants of all stripes are just the ticket for saving America’s economy while bringing the joys of diversity to you, the deplorables.
And so it is funny that this news from Utica, NY published yesterday is exactly what I warned about one month ago.
You will be seeing news like this from sea to shining sea in the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential contest.

The Cities Refugees Saved

Of course, I question the premise of the story from CityLab in the first place.  Why must we save a city that is no longer providing jobs or has been poorly run by Democrats for decades?
First just so you know here are the ‘brains’ behind the New American Economy propaganda machine. Tell me if this bunch has anything more on their minds than cheap immigrant labor and more Democrat voters!

screenshot (826)
CityLab calls the New American Economy, a bipartisan immigration reform group!

 
This is my post from earlier this month on the New American Economy.
CityLab reports that the New American Economy gang has teamed up (has hired) a film company to put together a film that will showcase Utica’s booming refugee-driven economy. (They love films!)
Utica church becomes mosque
Symbol of the NEW Utica: Historic Methodist Church becomes a mosque

 
Film maker Adam Bedient (director of photography and editor at Off Ramp Films) says he grew up nearby and it was just a dying city but now, joy of joys the Bosnian Muslims that Bill Clinton welcomed to America have turned the city around.

Now, he’s working on a full-length feature about the refugee communities in Utica, and when he drives through town, he finds it simmering with new life. Old buildings are getting refurbished. Construction cranes bob up and down. And at the center of town is a long-vacant historic Methodist church that has been renovated and converted into a beautiful mosque—a symbol of the new Utica.

The CitiLab story goes on to report how the city is thriving. You can read it yourself.
When you see news like this, look to see if they have included any mention of problems, like the one I reported at Refugee Resettlement Watch in 2015 about the school funding crisis when the city of Utica sued the state of New York for a refugee-created school funding shortfall.
See if they mention anything about dollars from Washington (from you) that fuel the local ‘new American’ economy via welfare—food stamps, housing subsidies, healthcare, federal grants for myriad refugee/immigrant services, grants to non-profits that service migrants and so forth.
In other words , is Utica a prime example of simply shifting federal tax dollars to a dying city?

Screenshot (858)
Useful graphic from the story.  Heads up if you live in one of those cities, you might be next for a propaganda film about your growing refugee population. At RRW I wrote about problems in almost every one of them!

 
CityLab goes on (as expected) to bash the President and White House policy staffer Stephen Miller saying they don’t know what they are talking about when they express concerns about the cost of more refugee resettlement or any issues of safety and security.  You can read it all here.
The story wraps with a quote from Bedient about that on-going debate,

This kind of wrangling over the true impact of refugees doesn’t get much traction in Utica, where refugees now make up almost a quarter of the city’s population, Bedient says. It’s not really up for debate at this point—“it’s a part of the city’s identity now,” he says.

Bottomline, the New American Economy and the Open Borders cabal have decided, there is no longer any debate, so shut up!

question markHere is what I don’t get!
Utica, has been paraded out for over a decade as a city saved by refugees, but no group on the immigration control side of the debate has ever (to my knowledge) gone to Utica to investigate the claims and counter them. Why is that?