First on CNN: Sources: Diplomatic fraud ring also spied
By Evan Perez
This is a Russian spy ring that would embarrass Anna Chapman.
Justice Department prosecutors last week filed charges against what they say is a group of current and former Russian diplomats who allegedly ran a nine-year scheme that bilked $1.5 million from Medicaid, the U.S. health benefits program for the poor.
But CNN has learned that there's a spy angle to this case. Federal counterintelligence investigators say they believe some of the alleged participants in the fraud scheme were also engaged in espionage, sources tell CNN. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were on the trail of the alleged spies for some time, sources say. But in the end, the Justice Department decided to bring only the fraud charges.
There are 49 people charged in the case - 25 current and former Russian diplomats and 24 of their spouses. But only 11 of them remain in the U.S. and all have diplomatic immunity. So unless the Russian government waives their immunity - which is unlikely - they can't be arrested. Instead, the State Department is expected to seek to have them sent home.
The case comes amid some tensions in U.S.-Russian relations over a variety of issues, from Syria and Iran to the Russian asylum granted to former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. Counterintelligence officials say Russian spying activity in the U.S. is back to near Cold War levels.
In 2010, the FBI rounded up a group of Russian sleeper agents who were part of what the U.S. called the Illegals Program. Ten people who posed as academics and business people were arrested, including Anna Chapman, now 31 years old. She posed as an entrepreneur and socialite, and garnered the most attention for her glamorous looks. Vice President Joe Biden joked on a talk show that he wouldn't have sent her back to Russia.
The U.S. and Russia conducted a spy swap to resolve the issue, after the 10 spies pleaded guilty. Another alleged Russian spy in the group fled after being arrested in Cyprus. And a 12th was deported.
While the Illegals used sophisticated communications methods to avoid detection, the latest group charged is portrayed in court documents more as common fraudsters.
It couldn't be learned how many of the 49 charged last week are suspected of spying and what type of activity the FBI investigators in New York and Washington believe they were involved in. But Manhattan federal prosecutors believed they didn't have enough evidence to bring espionage charges, one source said. In any case, U.S. officials view the fraud charges as more embarrassing to the Russian government.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara accused the 49 charged in the fraud case of "picking pockets" in the U.S. "Here, as alleged, a multitude of Russian diplomats and their spouses ran a scam on a health care system designed to help Americans in need," Bharara said.
The accused work as mission, consulate and trade representatives in New York, although one also once worked at the embassy in Washington. The Russian government normally pays for medical costs of their employees, and those employees' children aren't generally eligible for U.S. citizenship at birth.
According to prosecutors, the diplomats falsified Medicaid benefits applications, under-reporting incomes or reporting no income to qualify. While they got benefits, they had a taste for high-end shopping, spending thousands at stores such as Tiffany and Bloomingdale's.
One former Russian diplomat charged is named Timur Salomatin, who with his wife, Nailya Babaeva, applied for Medicaid pregnancy benefits in November 2010 and represented Salomatin's salary to be $3,000 a month, and later $4,400 a month. The family got almost $31,000 in fraudulent Medicaid benefits, prosecutors say. While getting Medicaid benefits last year, the couple spent $50,000 on purchases from retailers such as Apple, Prada and Bloomingdale's, prosecutors allege.
@natlsecuritycnn on Twitter
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So, typical of Russian, Chinese and Cuban Communist's – one scam leads into another. If they are not engaging in corporate espionage, then they are hacking computers and if not that then they are selling fake Cuban cigars - IN CUBA! Now, how is that possible? Communism is Theft...
They do it because we (USA and the rest of the world) allow them to play dirty tricks on all of us.
Gasp!
Countries spying on each other!
Say it isn't so?
I was born in Russia. My opinion: Kick them out. Revoke their kids' American citizenship. And never let them back to this country. This would be the best punishment for them. Shame on Russian government for protecting them.
Thank you, you made it chrystal clear what is is al about: it is just a public stunt to make American people feel outraged.
Some American peple are simply too short-minded to even bother to read the article before expressing their judgement. To bad for American People. You managed to concentrate your outrage and your stupidity just in three lines.
There is no need to kick them out of the country: all of them already left. Some several years ago.
There is no need to revoke US citizenship of theit kids: then never has it and never applied for it. Besides, kids are 100% innocent.
Shame on Russian Government? May be. Putin still provides free medical care to foreing diplomats in Moscow. That is tupid, indeed.
The word "Shame" is missing in the vocabulary of all Russian governments, starting November 1917.Take my word for it.I also was born in the USSR, not Russia.
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"The case comes amid some tensions in U.S.-Russian relations ..."
As if by accident 🙂
Dear Elena, is not it "better late than never"?
Reblogged this on News-Press and commented:
First on CNN: Sources: Diplomatic fraud ring also spied
U.S. government handouts now paying for the Russians to spy on us too.
LOL Does it get any better than this?
Another example of non-citizens scamming the system. Why are taxpayers continuing to put up with this?
Hell since when has Obama been concerned about fraud being committed by his supporters.
why single out only Russians and what about all middle easterners?
In the second place, Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals.
– Diaries, General Patton : A Soldier's Life (2002) by Stanley P. Hirshson, p. 661
The point is, pretty much every country knows what a wimp Oblameo is. Don't cross this line, ooops I mean this line, errr I mean , well you get the point. He wont fire Sebelious who just wasted a billion bucks, you think the inept one is going to anything ??? think again
About 20% of Medicaid payments are fraudulent, try telling this to a neoliberal and they will call you racist.
Yet, people continue to support Edward Snowden for revealing sensitive government information in a country that's engaged in the same sort of activity.
I guess they have learned all the lessons of the market economy after all 🙂 which were taught them during the 90s 😉
The chicken come home to roost... should I say.
By the way, just in case you've missed it: Apple products cost ~30% more in Europe and Russia. They used saved money to buy Apple products for future retail and they transferred gadgets through the customs using their diplomatic status. Such "creative" and "entrepreneurial" fellows :)))
CNN has "closed comments" on the Cruz story and Gingrich story. Why? Is there really Free Speech on these CNN posts if CNN decides which stories people can speak about and which ones will be closed? Is that free speech? Who is in the back room deciding? Carl Rove? The time has come to tell it like it is. CNN IS FOX LIGHT.
For Medicaid and Medicare fraud, federal law establishes
(1) a civil statute of limitations of six years (42 U. S. C. § 1320a-7a(c)(1)), and
(2) a criminal statute of limitations of five years (18 U. S. C. § 3282).
So why did FBI and prosecutor Preet Bharara waited for so long before filing the charges?
Half of the counts in the Indictment goes strait to trash bin because they already expired.
Preet Bharara became a "persona non grata" in Russia a year ago. If think this was the source of his motivation.
Perhaps, he had to cancel his vacation to Saint Petersburg 🙂
Did he ever wanted to go to Russia?
I do not think he actually wanted to visits Russia, but the mere fact "non grata" status got him going...
and the fraud by Americans costs us 1.5 Billion a year
It's got to be more than that. In America you are either predator or prey. The Russians just come here because the hunting is so good.
And, we are going to buy helicopters from Russia at million$ of US taxpayers expense to be used by the Afgans! How is this being allowed? What, can't we make helicopters? Also, didn't the US Govt. pay a firm outside of the US to design the failed website for Obamacare? Don't we have any people here who could do this, but, hopefully better!
It's a little bit different. Mi-17s have reliable, cheap to fly and service design form 60s. Plus if there are any chopper pilots left in Afghanistan, they flew Mi-8/17. I'd say US-built choppers are very nice, but come on they won't last long in those conditions and with Afghani techs.
Objection! The most recent CNN video photoshoped the face of Anna Chapman to make it fat-looking like Monica Lewinskii.
So that works out to a staggering $167k per year.
Glad they caught 'em, but the investigation alone cost more than what was being pilfered. Get back to me when the billions of dollars of fraud and waste Obama said could be realized in savings on Medicaid alone get found.
And Obama wants to give 11million illegals amnesty?
No, the remaining 11 already left US as of today, Monday Dec. 9, 2013. No need to even assert diplomatic immunity.
If there govt can't afford to support them on U.S. soil, they should keep them home. There is no reason that
the government should have to support these freeloaders.
There are tens of thousands of Russians in Brooklyn scamming the system right now. Between elderly Russians being shuffled to medical mills for bogus medical treatments and an entire cottage industry catering to fradulent personal injury suits its costing American taxpayers billions of dollars every year.
Patton was right about the Russians in 1945, nothing has really changed in that regard.
Thank you!!!
I am not surprised at all foreign diplomats with immunity commit all sorts of crimes and get away with it.
Diplomatic immunity == free parking. anywhere. anytime.
I agree. If truth were known I'd bet they are trained to fund their espionage activities and overhead with fraud of all types.
What a surprise...! Comments above gave me some chuckles.
Russian woman had sagging chests, America has great plastic surgeons so why wouldn't these Cossacks use our Medicaid for it would be an embarrashment to go home without the best thing America sells... Bigger Breasts
I agree with Sam. The Medican and the wealthy Chinese are coming to the US to have their babies. These babies get the US citizenshipautomaticcally. These babies are called anchored babies.
We need to change the rule so that only babies born by permanent residents or US citizens can have US citizenship or in the future our beloved country will belong to Chinese and Mexican.
So CNN says Russian spies have defrauded US medicare for what: $1.5 M... They used 49 people from UN Diplomatic Corpus to help them with the scheme: so altogether achieving such a spectacular result! CNN sheep are left horror-struck by the news!
And that took them 9 years too! Wow: what a grand scale! And it's all for $1.5 M: you must be kidding!
They're taking out the trash.
$ trillion, per years is being scammed from Medicaid, according to an expose, which 60 Minutes aired a while back. I can't understand how and why our government would allow this to occur.
Are you serious? Even AFTER these oversights are pointed out, the government goes right on doing the exact same BS. I still remember the $400 hammer stories from 60 minutes years ago and guess what? It's even worse now. We could actually cut taxes and save many, many BILLIONS just on cutting waste alone, if we ever got anyone in Washington with the brains and stones to actually do something.
And God forbid we shouldn't pay a few hundred in taxes.....slap the cuffs on! Take the house!
Isn't this great? We are not able to police one medical system but want to install a larger one. The corruption of our system is beyond compare. There are no checks and balances because of the spineless politicians not only in DC but at the local level. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg, just look at the federal loan programs that are being abused for countless millions of dollars without anyone to investigate. The politicians that steal millions upon millions and get caught not even paying taxes seem to be exempt from laws so why bother with any of this. America has become a rotting carcass with jackals tearing off their piece of meat while the citizens stand by and watch as it is devoured.
I know, right? And, we have people cheating on their taxes and get away with it. We shouldn't have any government agency unless we can certify 100% that there is no fraud.
Quite interesting, espoinage plus making money. It's absolutely new. Only in America....
HAHAHAH – too funny. Well, were the Russians at least able to vote for Obama in the election?
Only in blue states. In places like North Carolina and Texas they were too scared.
...and exactly why are we giving benefits to non-US citizens? Time to put the brakes on our generosity.... Until there is not a single American citizen hungry homeless or sick should a hand be extended to non-US citizens. Our once great country is being bled dry by those that have no respect for us or our laws and have no interest in contributing to our society. Same goes for our foreign aid. Why are we giving our precious resources to these countries that hate and resent us so much. Bugger off.
We shouldn't be giving benefits to non-citizens but if these people are diplomats they definitely not using nor needing medicaid. This article, or maybe the entire case is missing some very substantial details. For starters, foreign diplomats on Medicaid just doesn't add up. Secondly, the amount mentioned – $1.5 million for 9 years, for 49 people – that's only $3.4K per person. Definitely not something to be enough for all those "luxurious vacations and watches" that the chart in the picture describes. An average medicaid user is probably overcharged annually 3 times of this. Looks like this is just a silly attempt to create negative publicity after the Snowden asylum.
Why non-citizen get benefits in US? - most likely because of reciprocal bi-lateral agreements between Russia and US.
Russia provides free heath care for foreign diplomats in Moscow in any case. Besides, Russian hospitals do not even have stuff to handle medical insurance claims.
Well, what do you expect? We, the people, seem to be condoning our government keeping more things secret, even ourselves. We've allowed ourselves to be frightened into giving up all kinds of rights and trust by the slimely politicians we currently have representing us. I'm talking to you Boehner, and I'm talking to you, too, Mr. President. You guys are allowing us to become a bunch of sneaky little weasels for all the wrong people, and for all the wrong reasons. Sucking it for the money has degraded us from a once bright beacon of hope to a cadre of shadowy weasels protecting the greediest among us. Snap out of it, would you? As Americans, we may not be that bright, but we're not that communally stupid, even taking into account the number of poorly educated, right-wing morons currently all over Fox News.
You think Obama will get tough with Putin?
Naaahhhhhhh
He's a weenie...
And you're a sissy. What have you ever done on an international scale?
Typical obamobot, name calling and insulting, it shows how ignorant you are. I know it is an embarrassment that you voted for him, get over it. It sucks when you backed an inept LIAR !!!
Putin is a heavyweight and serious statesman – Obama is a lightweight community organizer, it's not even a contest.
Obama didn't know about this. Nobody has told him.
Call our ambassador home, close our embassy and break off relations with Russia. Screw Putin the putz. They need us worse than we need them.
Time to change the immunity law to exclude civil criminality. That the Ruble and Russia's wealth was utterly pillaged by western banking interests during the collapse of the Soviet Union is well known but that shouldn't excuse this.
test
Are we stupid or what? We deserve whatever we get.
OMG!!! first the nsa and now the russians!!!! when will all this spying stop???
It will not. It will only get worse.
obamacare will expand the medicaid program so all Russians can get on medicaid. And they want us to believe the fraud rate for medicaid is less than 1%? Only the blind can believe that.
Obamacare will enable you to get that brain implant you so desperately require.
This is called saving a card for a rainy day: AKA diplomacy. They were probably caught years ago and this was being held in the hold so when something like Snowden comes up we can play that card. In a few months, the Russian's will find a spy or show evidence of a US diplomat doing something.
If they sent Mexicans home for Medicaid fraud they would be crucified.
They aren't Russians, they are liberals. Just using the system for all it's worth.
Seriously, you are an incredible moron. Back to Fox News, you pod.
So basically they were so incompetent at spying that it wasn't even worth charging them with it?
Definitely their wives were spying in Tiffany & Co when they wee buying the latest models of lingerie with the intent to bring it to Russia and organize production of counterfeit brand-name dresses.
Big Brother nations turn their people into monsters. We are heading that way.
Yeah, vote for Hillary 2016-2024 and see what happens.
If I vote for Hilary could I get a date with Anna Chapman?
She will be 69 ... hmmm, no chance.
English... How can they be "Alleged Russian Diplomats?" One would think that the U.S. would know whether they are diplomats or not. I thought there are Russian Diplomats who allegedly committed fraud.
Obviosly. The Liberals try to deflect all trouble to either th oppositions or just twist the truth around.
Can you even form a thought without associating it to divisive politics? How many times per day do you say the word "liberal"? Does Fox News have a rewards program for that level of brainwashing?
Seriously, wouldn't it be great not to always assign political tags on everybody? Surely you know Americans are not all either "liberals" or "right-wingers". Maybe it's time to stop allowing the media's talking-heads to divide our people into hate clubs...
Diplomatic status's are tricky. Many foreign workers and operatives are granted diplomatic immunity even though they are not "diplomats." You don't want to call someone a Russian Diplomat, who is the shooter on the protective detail but you also want to get the point accross that they have diplomatic immunity. There isn't always a clear line on what is what, when you have another country claiming something. Odds are Russia Blacketly stated they were all diplomats and therefore that is what was passed on here.
It has nothing to do with a particular political bias no matter what a troll will tell you.
Blacketly = blanketly
Diplomat is a person who (1) has diplomatic passport and (2) is given a special accreditation from the receiving country. It is a simple as that: the receiving country must formally accept the person to serve as diplomat. This is the internationally adopted procedure.
In contrast, US often tries to extent diplomatic immunity to other categories of people, like regular military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan (as opposite, say to military attache in Embassy). No self-respecting country would ever accept that.
Russia is the largest kleptocracy in the world, these guys were just emulating Putin and gang.
I think we should get rid of immunity, for diplomats and for senators. Russians are known for abusing this privilege. In NYC, they park their cars as they wish, handicapped spaces, fire hydrants, they laugh in the face of police and traffic officers because they think they are unteachable. This is not what immunity should be about.
I think all these charges don't even make sense. How are Russian diplomats on Medicaid? Besides, $1.5 mil over 9 years over 49 people comes out to just $3.4K a person. This is miniscules amount, something a regular doctor routinely overcharges through the year on a regular patient. All these charges just look like a cr@p shoot to me, they don't make any sense and mostly likely this is just a petty publicity action, to retaliate after the Snowden asylum.
Perhaps Preet Bharara is running for election or something and needs a publicity stunt.
Your math is as wrong. Even if all 49 each drew from the system for all 9 years, that would be closer to $7700 each, per year.
My mistake, I don't know why I had 3.4 mil in my head. ouch! My apologies. Oh, yes, I transponded your 3.4 with the 1.5. Long day.
I'd say it's like $20k/year per household.
1500000/3/25=20000
25 diplomats and 24 spouses = 25 households
9 years, but embassies have staff rotation period of 3 years.
Not respecting diplomatic immunity is very bad idea because US diplomats are actually much more exposed, and often work in countries who are quite hostile to US.
Instead, as far as parking next ti fire hydrants - there is a much easier solution: a tow away truck.
Then, to get you car back one has to pay to towing compay, which is technically a private company charging for their services. State, Juistice system and municipality are technically not involved so diplomatic immunity does not apply here.
E.g., try to park your car in parking lot a grossery story for half a day and go elsewhere for the whole day. You cannot be issued a parking ticket because you do not violate any traffic law. Nevertheless, store manages may be not vey happy and call for tow truck. See the difference?
This lets me know we're trying to get even for Snowden. Good job WH.
I THINK IT IS TIME WE NEED TO LOOK INTO BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP VERY CAREFULLY
Huh? What has this to do with birthright citizenship? Children born to foreign diplomats aren't eligible for U.S. citizenship. It's clearly stated in the article that the kids aren't U.S. citizens. You need to pay more attention to facts and less to emotion
In this particular case children of aforementioned diplomats are not subjects to 14th Amendment and US citizenship by jus soli.
Nine years and all they could squeeze out of Medicaid was $1.5 million?
Let them have it. Consider it pity money.
Not only that but among 49 people. It's less than being wasted by doctors on any individual bona fide patient. Besides, how did diplomats end up on Medicaid? This story just doesn't make sense.
Wrong on the numbers and a silly basis for comparison; all systems have waste and that has no relevance to the morality or practical problems of people stealing from the budget funding the system. What are you smoking?