AP: Worker’s Comp Fraud Scheme “Targeted Latinos”— Wrong! “Recruited” Latinos, “Targeted” American Dollars
06/21/2017
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This Associated Press story could probably win an award for the number of questions it raised, rather than answered.
16 charged in alleged Southern California insurance fraud, June 5, 2017

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Ten lawyers and six others were charged Monday in a multimillion-dollar workers’ compensation fraud scheme that authorities say targeted Latinos in California.

The charges were filed after a three-year investigation into a scheme involving the illegal recruitment of more than 30,000 patients and $300 million in billing to workers’ compensation insurance, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

Under the alleged fraud, prosecutors said recruiters set up an illegal network called Centro Legal Internacional that advertised in Spanish language publications, at swap meets and on the U.S.-Mexico border to drum up business from patients.[ More] [Click here to read the names of the accused]

But it at least provides a glimpse into one of the many ways out-of-control immigration is bankrupting America.

I once toiled as a worker's comp defense attorney, which I can assure you is one of the least glamorous things you can with a law degree—probably even less glamorous than opening a cupcake truck because you couldn't find any legal work.

Workers' compensation is enough of a fraud for the whites involved, but they made up only a fraction of the mainstay customer:  Hispanics, many of whom were illegal.  My state treated illegal aliens as fully and unquestionably entitled to coverage, using the same "logic" that allowed illegally-employed children to get workers' comp years ago (i.e., we shouldn't punish the kid).

It made the blood boil.  Hispanic name after Hispanic name crammed the file folders.  We knew from our own investigations that these "workers" often had false claims and wouldn't hesitate to simply work under the table elsewhere while on disability, thus making double the money.

To say nothing of the employers, who never got in trouble for anything.

It was the kind of sprawling fraud that never got attention because everyone got a little piece of the action—judges, lawyers, doctors, insurance companies.  Even I was profiting, come to think of it.

 

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