Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Industry Notes:

Get Ready for More Elder Fraud Strike Force Enforcement

You should expect changes ahead for the Justice Department’s Transnational Elder Fraud Strike Force as it expands.

Details: The Strike Force, composed of DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch, six U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the FBI, U.S.Postal Inspection Service, and Homeland Security Investigations, will add 14 more U.S. Attorney’s Offices, Justice says in a release. “Since 2019, current Strike Force members … have brought successful cases against the largest and most harmful global elder fraud schemes and worked with foreign law enforcement to disrupt criminal enterprises, disable their infrastructure, and bring perpetrators to justice,” according to the release.

“Expansion of the Strike Force will help to coordinate the Department’s ongoing efforts to combat sophisticated fraud schemes that target or disproportionately impact older adults,” the DOJ notes. From September 2021 to September 2022, the strike force and its partners pursued about 260 cases involving more than 600 defendants, the release says. “The matters tackled by the Department and its partners ranged from mass-marketing scams that impacted thousands of victims to bad actors scamming their neighbors. Substantial efforts were also made over the last year to return money to fraud victims,” it says.