The Castro Mafia’s ties to Medicare Fraud in Florida

No doubt about it.

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The Castro Mafia’s ties to Medicare Fraud in Florida

By Alberto de la Cruz, on January 20, 2011, at 1:59 pm

Vanessa Lopez from UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) has an excellent exposé on the possible ties the criminal Castro mafia may have with the disproportionately high incidence of Medicare fraud cases in Florida.

The Cuban Government and Multi-Million Dollar Medicare Fraud in South Florida

The dilapidated state of the Cuban economy has left the Cuban government scrambling for ways to obtain hard currency. Cuba has contrived ways to benefit from leasing doctors, nurses, teachers, and security agents abroad; more recently, Cuba has also found ways to capitalize on large-scale Medicare fraud, possibly committing economic warfare on the United States.
Medicare fraud is one of the highest dollar volume crimes in the United States. In October of 2009, it was estimated that such fraud has reached $60 billion a year. (1) And South Florida has become the epicenter of this federal crime.
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The question should be posed: What makes South Florida different from any other region and can account for the troubling number of fraudulent claims emanating from the area?
Given that “at least half of South Florida’s Medicare fugitives are believed to be [hiding] in Cuba,” it is probable that the region’s Cuban-connections can be playing a significan