{"slug": "criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all", "title": "Criminals scamming billions from Medicare using fake AI voices, hacking data — all without setting foot in the USA", "summary": "International criminal networks are using AI voice bots and hacked patient data to steal billions from Medicare and Medicaid, according to a New York Post investigation. Scammers pose as healthcare workers to trick seniors, clone voices to authorize transactions, and purchase medical supply companies to fraudulently bill the programs. The schemes have netted over $1 billion, with the Russian mob alone attempting to bill $10 billion for fake urinary catheters.", "body_md": "# Criminals scamming billions from Medicare using fake AI voices, hacking data — all without setting foot in the USA\n\nSee more of our coverage in your search results.\n\n[Add The New York Post on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=nypost.com)\n\nMedicare and Medicaid are losing [billions of taxpayer dollars](https://nypost.com/2026/06/23/us-news/acting-ag-todd-blanche-announces-455-people-charged-for-6-5b-in-health-care-fraud-schemes/) to criminals because they can’t keep pace with their high-tech scams, a Post investigation has found.\n\nInternational criminal networks employ hackers who [steal sensitive patient data ](https://nypost.com/2026/06/30/us-news/russian-mobsters-1b-medicare-scam-likely-state-sanctioned-sources/)then sell it on the dark web or use it to then bill for fake medical equipment or services in people’s names.\n\nScammers even use AI voice bots to coax info out of seniors on the phone, posing as US healthcare workers, often from thousands of miles away in Europe or Asia.\n\nThey use the same techniques on the insurance companies, with one Philippines-based outfit going as far as training AIs to speak like American old folks when insurance companies called about suspicious claims, according to feds.\n\n“The fraud schemes I’m seeing — it blows me away. It’s frightening how sophisticated these things have become,” Gordon Schnell, a partner in the healthcare fraud whistleblower law firm Constantine Cannon, told The Post.\n\n“The scale of the money that CMS [Centers for Medicaid and Medicare] doles out every year is enormous. Even if they lose sight of a relatively small percentage of it, it’s still billions of dollars.”\n\nIn a March 2026 report to CMS, cybersecurity company Pindrop detailed how fraudsters use cloned voices to authorize transactions, working “at machine speed.”\n\nAI-enabled campaigns deploy automated voice bots to probe Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems — those automated telephone menus whenever you call a large company or a government agency — to test security and then escalate to a human agent, where they attempt to trick the human agent into releasing account data.\n\n“Synthetic identities built from breached data are used to establish coverage under fraudulent pretenses, or to fabricate consumer consent,” [the report ](https://www.pindrop.com/legal/commentary/comprehensive-regulations-uncover-suspicious-healthcare/#:~:text=Fraudsters%20exploit%20these%20weaknesses%20at,agents%20once%20weaknesses%20are%20identified.)found.\n\nLast month, The Post reported on [a jaw-dropping ‘phantom catheter’ scam](https://nypost.com/2026/06/30/us-news/russian-mobsters-1b-medicare-scam-likely-state-sanctioned-sources/) carried out by the Russian mob in which they made off with $1 billion.\n\nIncredibly they had allegedly been able to purchase 30 medical supply companies across the US which were already enrolled as Medicare providers, then used them to fraudulently bill Medicare. They attempted to bill $10 billion, mostly for urinary catheters, using the stolen patient data of over one million Americans, which triggered 400,000 complaints, according to prosecutors.\n\nThe scheme was brazen and most of the fake reimbursements were blocked, but not before gangsters had laundered huge amounts through banks in Israel, Turkey and China, prosecutors charge.\n\nThe change in ownership of a Medicare provider usually triggers a site visit, but CMS was unaware of the Russian business purchases because the gangsters — who sent patsies from Russia and Estonia to pick up physical checks in the US — didn’t alert the agency and kept the old owners’ names and bank accounts around for as long as possible, according to the indictment.\n\nIn several cases when CMS caught on and stopped paying shady companies, private supplemental insurance companies, known broadly as Medigap, instead continued paying and kept the scam alive longer, according to several indictments.\n\nIn June, the DOJ announced charges against Ibrahim Khaldoon Hilmi, who was allegedly running an offshore Medicare fraud scheme, also involving US medical supplies. He was apprehended in [Cyprus](https://nypost.com/2021/07/19/cyprus-showcases-ancient-undersea-harbor-to-draw-tourists/) and now faces federal health care fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges in Florida.\n\nProsecutors say through his Sunshine Senior urinary catheter company Hilmi was able to pocket $5.7 million in taxpayer money. It’s unclear if any of that has been recovered. Hilmi has yet to enter a plea.\n\nAlso last month Herbert Leon Kimble was nabbed at a casino in Pasig City, Philippines for orchestrating an attempted $1.2 billion Medicare fraud scheme using a Philippine call center to generate fake orthopedic brace prescriptions. He had previously pled guilty but then fled the country in 2022 after prosecutors recommended probation and a $40 million restitution payment.\n\nMeanwhile, charges were filed in the Northern District of Illinois against five defendants in 2025, including two owners of Pakistani marketing companies, in connection with a scheme in which Medicare ID numbers were allegedly obtained via deceptive marketing.\n\nThrough hacking, scraping websites, and deceptive “free product” websites, they allegedly illegally obtained large numbers of real Medicare patients’ ID numbers, which they sold for $31 million to their own fake medical supply companies, according to prosecutors.\n\nThe scam included using artificial intelligence to create fake recordings of patients consenting to receive medical supplies, and the outfit made off with $419 million out of $700 million they billed for.\n\nAnother Pakistani scammer who owned a billing company was busted that year in a kickback scheme collaborating with at least 41 drug treatment centers in Arizona to fraudulently bill for substance abuse treatment services that were never provided, or substandard to requirements. Prosecutors say the defendant used some of his $25 million proceeds to purchase a $3 million home on a golf course in Dubai.\n\nNone of the defendants have yet entered a plea.\n\n1.3 million Americans were issued new Medicare beneficiary numbers this spring in a fraud prevention effort, according to CMS.\n\nMost of these criminals never actually set foot in the US themselves. To obtain businesses, foreign-based gangsters use virtual private servers (VPSs) to hide their true physical locations while communicating with sellers and digitally signing purchase documents, meaning the ease and interconnectivity of the modern world worked to their advantage.\n\nThey may also use a US-based corporate proxy, referred to in indictments as a “Registered Agent Company” to file paperwork on their behalf.\n\n“It may be that it’s just one of many criminal enterprises in which these foreign cartels engage in and may be actually easier because it doesn’t involve smuggling or moving around products. It’s clean. It’s all paperwork-oriented and you can do it remotely,” said Schnell.\n\n“[Gangs] already have systems set up for laundering illicit proceeds. So that’s why you’re seeing a trend. But by no means are [foreign networks] the [dominant bad actors ](https://nypost.com/2026/06/18/us-news/alleged-38m-adult-daycare-scam-busted-in-brooklyn-snaring-pakistani-community-leaders-who-cozied-up-to-dems/)in this space,” he added, noting domestic fraudsters account for the vast majority of the $186 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments nationwide, a figure estimated by the nonprofit Government Accountability Office.\n\nUS citizenship is not required to start or buy many businesses, even medical providers. In fact, even people who are in the US illegally are still lawfully allowed to purchase and own American companies in all 50 states, an intentional part of business codes designed to encourage foreign investment.\n\nHowever, the system does not differentiate between a Saudi billionaire investor, for example, and the army of 20-something Estonians who feds say were sent to the US on tourist visas and became nominee “owners” of the 30 medical supply companies in the Russian mob operation.\n\nAccording to indictments, the scams often relied on US-based bank tellers who were friendly with the fraudsters to assist in opening accounts and looking the other way around shady transactions.\n\n“Crypto seems to be a big part of it because it’s so easily transferable,” said Schnell. “One of our cases involved government payments sent through various money transfer platforms [such as Venmo or PayPal] that were immediately withdrawn and converted into crypto. Once it’s in crypto, it can be moved much more easily.”\n\nRequiring increased paperwork was once a bulwark against fraud, but Schnell says that no longer seems to be the case.\n\n“Everything is so tied into automation and AI that I’m not sure the paperwork burden is what it used to be,” he said.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all", "canonical_source": "https://nypost.com/2026/07/13/us-news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all-without-setting-foot-in-the-usa/", "published_at": "2026-07-13 22:04:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-13 22:09:40.057216+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Medicare", "Medicaid", "Centers for Medicaid and Medicare", "Pindrop", "Constantine Cannon", "Gordon Schnell", "Russian mob", "Department of Justice"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/criminals-scamming-billions-from-medicare-using-fake-ai-voices-hacking-data-all.jsonld"}}