Pharmacy Owners Sentenced for $18M COVID-19 Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme | U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York

Summary

A press release of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York dated Monday, June 24, 2024, announcing that Peter Khaim was sentenced in Brooklyn by United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly to 97 months in prison for using New York-area pharmacies to submit false claims to Medicare and laundering the proceeds. It states that his brother and codefendant, Arkadiy Khaimov, was previously sentenced on April 3, 2024, to six years, and that both pleaded guilty in November 2022 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to the release, Khaim was ordered to pay more than $18 million in restitution and forfeit more than $2.7 million, and Khaimov to pay more than $18 million and forfeit more than $9.6 million. It was announced by United States Attorney Breon Peace with Justice Department and agency officials.

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Press Release

Pharmacy Owners Sentenced for $18M COVID-19 Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme

Monday, June 24, 2024

For Immediate Release

U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York

Today, in federal court in Brooklyn, Peter Khaim was sentenced by United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly to 97 months in prison for using New York-area pharmacies to submit false and fraudulent claims to Medicare and then laundering the criminal proceeds. Khaim’s brother and codefendant, Arkadiy Khaimov, was previously sentenced on April 3, 2024 to six years in prison for his role in the money laundering scheme. Khaim and Khaimov pleaded guilty in November 2022 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. As part of their sentences, Khaim was ordered to pay more than $18 million in restitution and to forfeit more than $2.7 million; Khaimov was ordered to pay more than $18 million in restitution and to forfeit more than $9.6 million.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Nicole M. Argentieri, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office; Thomas M. Fattorusso, Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation; Naomi Gruchacz, Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General; and Patricia Tarasca, Special Agent-in-Charge, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General, announced the sentences.

According to court documents, Khaim and Khaimov engaged in a complex money laundering conspiracy to launder the proceeds of a fraudulent health care scheme involving over a dozen New York-area pharmacies that they, and their co-conspirators, owned and controlled. Khaim and Khaimov used the New York pharmacies to submit millions of dollars in fraudulent claims to Medicare, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Khaim, Khaimov, and their co-conspirators exploited the COVID-19 emergency for their own financial gain by using COVID-19-related “emergency override” billing codes to submit fraudulent claims for expensive cancer medications Targretin Gel 1% and Panretin Gel 0.1% that were not prescribed by physicians or dispensed to patients, and that were purportedly dispensed during periods when certain pharmacies were closed.

Khaim and Khaimov concealed over $18 million of their criminal proceeds by funneling money through several shell companies, including sham pharmacy wholesale companies designed to look like legitimate wholesalers. Khaim and Khaimov typically sent the funds from the pharmacy bank accounts they controlled to the sham wholesale companies. The funds were then typically sent to companies in China for distribution to individuals in Uzbekistan, and the defendants received some of these funds in cash. At other times, the fraudulent proceeds were sent from the sham wholesale companies to Khaim, Khaimov, their relatives, or their designees, in the form of certified cashier’s checks and cash. Khaim and Khaimov used the proceeds of the scheme to purchase real estate and other luxury items.

Trial Attorney Arun Bodapati of the Fraud Section’s Northeast Strike Force prosecuted the case. Fraud Section Principal Assistant Chief Jacob Foster and Assistant Chief Patrick Mott assisted with the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Claire Kedeshian of the Eastern District of New York’s Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.

Defendants:

PETER KHAIM Age: 44 Forest Hills, Queens

ARKADIY KHAIMOV Age: 41 Forest Hills, Queens

E.D.N.Y. Docket No.: 20-CR-580 (AMD)

Contact

John Marzulli Danielle Blustein Hass U.S. Attorney's Office (718) 254-6323

Updated June 25, 2024

Topics

Coronavirus

Health Care Fraud

Component

USAO - New York, Eastern

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