California officials make arrests in LA hospice fraud crackdown

Exclusive U.S. Arrests made in California fraud crackdown targeting LA hospice ring allegedly behind $267 million in bogus charges By Laura Geller, Laura Geller National Investigative Producer Laura Geller is a multi-award-winning investigative journalist. She joined the CBS News Innovation Lab as a national investigative producer in September 2023. Read Full Bio Laura Geller, Rachel Gold, Rachel Gold Investigative Data Reporter Rachel Gold is an investigative data reporter with CBS News. Read Full Bio Rachel Gold, Adam Yamaguchi Adam Yamaguchi Correspondent Adam Yamaguchi is a CBS News correspondent based in Los Angeles. Read Full Bio Adam Yamaguchi April 9, 2026 / 1:00 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google The California Department of Justice and several state agencies arrested five people Wednesday in a crackdown on an alleged hospice fraud ring, and officials said more arrests will come. Several suspects received "notices to appear" in court and will face arrest warrants if they don't show. In total, the state filed charges against 21 suspects.State Attorney General Rob Bonta said the scheme defrauded California of $267 million through bogus charges to Medi-Cal, the state-administered Medicaid program. Americans pay into Medicare through taxes and premiums, so defrauding it would be essentially stealing from all American taxpayers. "What will address fraud is us doing the hard work — heads down, sleeves rolled up, doing the investigation, doing the arrests, doing the prosecutions, holding folks accountable," Bonta told CBS News.Bonta said the defendants collected money without providing a single legitimate hospice service. The law enforcement effort, called Operation Skip Trace, targeted ten locations in Southern California. According to the California Department of Justice, individuals purchased identifying information for non-California residents from the dark web and used them to enroll in Medi-Cal. Then, straw owners bought 14 hospice comp...