A $12 million fraud with a Keys guy, a Broward pizza joint and Miami money laundering
Brad Kantor’s $12 million healthcare fraud allowed him to buy a $2.5 million Key Largo home, a 37-foot Boston Whaler boat and two Winnebago recreational vehicles. And, after Kantor got caught, it also bought him a 10-year federal prison sentence.
Kantor’s victim wasn’t Medicare or Medicaid, the common targets for health care fraud in the Miami metropolitan area. The 50-year-old defrauded United Healthcare of $12,113,514.
Kantor pleaded guilty in Fort Lauderdale federal court to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In forfeiture, prosecutors snagged the 2016 Forza Winnebago motor home, which JD Power lists as costing $155,000 retail; and the 2016 Aspect Winnebago motor home, which JD Power lists as costing at least $67,000 at the low end.
Originally, prosecutors wanted the Boston Whaler and the house, too. The boat got sold to someone unrelated to the case before the indictment and the Key Largo house didn’t have enough net equity.
Mobile Diagnostic Imaging and treatments that didn’t exist
State records say Kantor registered Mobile Diagnostic Imaging with the state in 2004, using the address of a Plantation home as the place of business. By the time this scheme started, MDI’s address was an office building in Davie.
His factual proffer described a basic health care fraud scheme.
“To enable MDI to submit as many health care insurance claims to United as possible, thereby enriching [Kantor], [Kantor] recruited and paid kickbacks to various conspirators in exchange for referring United beneficiaries to MDI,” the statement said. “[Kantor] then used these beneficiaries to submit false and fraudulent health care insurance claims to United ... regardless of whether the beneficiaries needed or received such services.”
Kantor’s statement, in federal court records, says from 2014 through 2016, he paid the owner of a Hollywood pizza place to enroll his workers in a United group healthcare plan. The more workers enrolled, the more money Kantor paid. He said he even got the pizzeria owner to put himself and immediate family on the plan. Kantor even took care of the premiums, the statement said.
From August 2015 through August 2016, Kantor suckered $1.75 million from United on fraudulent claims from his pizza pal.
Kantor’s admission says he also used that staple of fraud and money laundering, the shell company.
State records say a crony of Kantor’s from Pompano Beach formed a company for which he was the only officer on April 14, 2014. Kantor’s statement says that was a shell company, and from 2014 through 2016, the owner of the shell “hired” friends and acquaintances as employees and enrolled them in a group health care plan with United. For the August 2015 through August 2016 period, United paid $600,000 on fraudulent claims involving those employees.
“Most of the employee-beneficiaries who were used by [Kantor] and his conspirators to commit the fraudulent billing scheme remained unaware that [Kantor] and MDI had been billing United on their behalf,” the statement says. “This is because [Kantor], in order to avoid alerting beneficiaries that they were being used to perpetrate a fraud, did not list beneficiaries’ home addresses or personal phone numbers during enrollment,” which Kantor did himself.
As for the money laundering part, Kantor gave some of the money he got from United, the statement said, to the pizzeria owner so the pizza man could pay for the insurance premiums.
The statement said, “In other words, [Kantor] distributed the fraudulent proceeds of his conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud to conspirators, including Tusa, in order to induce the enrollment of additional beneficiaries for [Kantor’s] health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, thereby furthering the fraud.”
The total count on fraudulent claims MDI submitted to United: $41,915,751. Total count on payments made: $12,113,514.
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 2:17 PM.
