PHOENIX — The United States Attorney's Office in Phoenix identified several fraud charges in Arizona related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One complaint charges Harmony Healthcare CEO, Jeremiah Faber, of Gold Canyon, with one count of health care fraud and one count of money laundering. The complaint alleges that Faber used the Harmony Healthcare Facebook page and other social media accounts to offer free COVID-19 testing if patients also got Harmony Healthcare's "Comprehensive Whole-Body Assessment."
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Harmony Healthcare then fraudulently submitted claims for reimbursement to Arizona's health care benefit program, Mercy Care. The claims for reimbursement allegedly showed billing for services that were "medically unnecessary" and the claims also showed services provided in the names of physicians that didn't have a role in the services.
Two more complaints unsealed by the U.S. Attorney's Office say six more individuals associated with five Valley businesses are also charged. These businesses claim to provide non-emergency medical transportation services in the Navajo Nation, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The complaint charges three people with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. The complaint alleges Abdul Raheem Abdul Jabbar, Nohad Loabneh and Abedelhalim Lawabni falsely billed Arizona's Health Care Containment Cost System for more than 9,000 non-emergency medical transports in April 2020 when those transports did not occur.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, those billings to three companies totaled more than $2.75 million. Loabneh and Lawabni own A&N Services, LLC. Abdul Jabbar owns and operates Freedom AZ, LLC.
Another complaint alleges three more people falsely billed AHCCCS for more than 1,500 non-emergency transports in April 2020 that did not happen. Miguel Denga and Husam Alsadi, who own Philia Homecare, LLC and Tamarria Denga, who owns and operates COS 1, LLC. were named.
The false billings to AHCCCS in this complaint total more than $450,000.
Jeremiah Faber is scheduled to make his initial appearance in court on June 30, 2020. The other six defendants are scheduled to make their initial appearances in court on June 11, 2020.
RELATED: Robocalls are a victim of COVID-19
