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The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had charged 14 defendants linked to a whopping $50 million in alleged fraud in Ohio, as the Trump administration’s fight against corruption continues.
“In total, between our state and federal partners, today we’re announcing charges that were either unsealed today or over the past week, against 14 defendants allegedly involved in fraud schemes targeting over $50 million here in Ohio, and again, these numbers are staggering, but just the tip of the iceberg, both here in Ohio and nationwide,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a press conference.
This also comes amid the agency’s announcement of a federal and state cooperation effort in Ohio to go after fraudsters.
According to the DOJ, this effort has also sparked the creation of the “FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters” list.
“Today’s takedown of multiple healthcare companies and four individuals who allegedly robbed taxpayer funded Medicaid is the latest victory in the Trump administration’s total war on fraudsters,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a statement.
He said that the FBI, along with interagency partners, had seized seven bank accounts in this specific “takedown” worth $600,000, along with 14 vehicles, “all of which allegedly came as direct proceeds from robbing value community healthcare resources from Americans who needed it – many of which were enrolled Medicaid children.”
During his comments to the press, Acting AG Blanche said that Ohio “is facing some of the most significant fraud schemes in the country…to meet this challenge, to meet this crisis, our response has been and will continue to be aggressive, comprehensive, and we will not stop until we fix this problem.”
Acting AG Blanche stepped into his role in the wake of former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure. On Wednesday, President Trump suggested that Blanche would become the permanent attorney general, as reported by RSBN.
“Tomorrow I’m instructing Dan and everybody else that’s involved in that very complicated process, which is gonna go I think very quickly, that we are going to make [Blanche] permanent attorney general,” the president remarked at the White House.