Alleged Medicare fraudster arrested on broken down jet ski
By HME News Staff
Updated 8:41 AM CDT, Fri June 17, 2022
MIAMI – A federal judge in Miami ordered that a Hialeah resident who allegedly submitted more than $4 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare be detained pending trial, after he was arrested on board a jet ski headed south from Key West toward Cuba. According to allegations in the criminal complaint, from February through April, 54-year-old Ernesto Cruz Graveran owned Xiko Enterprises, Inc., a Florida corporation that purported to provide DME to eligible Medicare beneficiaries. The complaint alleges that Xiko, in only a two-month period in 2022, submitted approximately $4.2 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare for DME that Xiko never provided and that Medicare beneficiaries never requested. As a result, Medicare paid Xiko more than $2.1 million. The government alleged in court that the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers located Graveran aboard a broken-down jet ski in the waters south of Key West, headed in the direction of Cuba, roughly 90 miles away. Graveran was aboard the jet ski along with one other individual, who was known to law enforcement to be an alien smuggler. The jet ski was outfitted with a special fuel cell to allow for long trips and within the compartments of the jet ski, law enforcement discovered a trove of food and water bottles.
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