Three Borough Residents among 11 Arrested in National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : Muratov, 46, who operated Ave M Pharmacy in Brooklyn, along with Artom Rafaelov and others, handled the pharmacy's finances and payments and, together with others, caused the submission of approximately 253 claims to Medicare for Targretin Gel 1 percent.
44% : In March 2024, Rafaelov was sentenced by United States District Judge William F. Kuntz II to 37 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay $4.2 million in restitution to Medicare.
42% : The indictment further alleges that Jiang, known as "Jeff" to his Oakland Gardens neighbors, and others wrote checks to various "trading companies" to obtain cash that was distributed as profits amongst the pharmacies' owners and used to pay illegal kickbacks and bribes.Forest Hills resident Albert Muratov pleaded guilty on June 11, 2024 to health care fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud Medicare by billing for undispensed cancer medication.
39% : From 2017 to 2021, the defendant and his co-conspirators, including Rafaelov, billed Medicare for Targretin that was medically unnecessary, not ordered by a professional, or that they did not dispense; as a result, Medicare paid Ave M Pharmacy more than $4 million.
37% : Between approximately February 2017 and September 2021, the Fresh Meadows resident and co-conspirator Albert Muratov defrauded Medicare by causing Ave M to submit fraudulent claims for Targretin Gel 1 percent (described above) that were neither purchased nor stocked by Ave M; and not medically necessary or not prescribed by the doctors that Ave M claimed had prescribed the medication.
35% : On Thursday, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced that a national health care fraud action had netted 11 defendants -- including three who call Queens home -- variously charged in schemes to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.