A man wanted for insurance claims fraud tried to flee to Cuba on a jet ski with food and water but was caught but authorities.
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Ernesto Cruz Graveran,54, was caught by the US Coast Guard after his jet ski broke down in the Florida Keys. The US Attorney’s Office said in a statement that the suspect’s jet ski was ‘outfitted with a special fuel cell to allow for long trips, and within the compartments of the jet ski, law enforcement discovered a trove of food and water bottles.’ The complaint also states he went on the run after he allegedly submitted more than $4 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare.
“Graveran was aboard the jet ski along with one other individual, who was known to law enforcement to be an alien smuggler. The jet ski was outfitted with a special fuel cell to allow for long trips, and within the compartments of the jet ski, law enforcement discovered a trove of food and water bottles.”
As reported by Metro UK, it was unclear how far he made it in the 90-mile trip to Cuba before he was caught.
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The suspect launched a medical equipment company to allegedly steal insurance funds from Medicare
The Medicare fraud stems from the suspect uing his company, Xiko Enterprises, to recieve funds for medical equipment for approximately two months sfter claiming it was eligible for Medicare benefits. He launched the Hialeah based company for those who recieved Medicare funds for their medical equipment and claimed a doctor wrote prescriptions for 145 patients.
“According to allegations in the criminal complaint, from February through April, 54-year-old Ernesto Cruz Graveran owned Xiko Enterprises, Inc., a Florida corporation that purported to provide durable medical equipment (“DME”) to eligible Medicare beneficiaries. The complaint alleges that Xiko, in only a two-month period in 2022, submitted approximately $4.2 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare for DME that Xiko never provided, and that Medicare beneficiaries never requested. As a result, Medicare paid Xiko over $2.1 million.”
For example, according to the claims that Xiko submitted to Medicare, one physician purportedly prescribed DME from Xiko for approximately 145 Medicare beneficiaries, and Xiko billed Medicare over $1 million for DME referred by this one physician. But, according to the complaint, none of those 145 beneficiaries were in fact patients of that physician, and that physician never prescribed any of the billed-for DME.
A federal judge said in agreement with prosecutors that Graveran posed a flight risk due to his crimes. His passport was also confiscated by authorities and they transported him to the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
He is currently awaiting trial and it is unclear on what charges he will be facing for fleeing the United States and trying to enter Cuba illegally. The identity of his accomplice was also unknown expect that he was smuggler of migrants who try to the enter the US or leave.