'Sheriff of Wall Street' Preet Bharara charges Russian diplomats with fraud

Saturday, 07 December 2013, 02:13 IST   |    1 Comments
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New York : Manhattan's Indian-American attorney Preet Bharara, also known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street", has now charged 49 Russian diplomats and their spouses with scamming Medicaid out of $1.5 million over a decade.

The 49 current or former Russian diplomats and their spouses living in New York City were accused of participating in a widespread fraud scheme to illegally obtain benefits under Medicaid, a government health care programme for low-income families.

They did so from 2004 to August 2013 by among other things, falsely underreporting their income or falsely claiming that their child was a citizen of the United States, federal prosecutors said.

Even as they underreported their income to receive Medicaid benefits, they spent tens of thousands of dollars on cruise vacations and buying expensive watches, shoes, and jewellery, at luxury stores like Tiffany & Co., Jimmy Choo, Prada, Bloomingdale's, and Burberry, prosecutors said.

In one instance, Andrey Artasov said he made just $34,800 a year but with his wife spent more than $48,000 in 2008 on items that included Apple products and Swarovski jewellery, they said.

"Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country," said Bhrara at a press conference alleging that "a multitude of Russian diplomats and their spouses ran a scam on a health care system designed to help Americans in need."

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Source: IANS
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