DOJ to create new division to pursue Medicaid and Medicare fraud, agency official says

An agency official said the Department of Justice plans to create a new division and appoint an assistant attorney general to concentrate on Medicaid and Medicare fraud.

The questioner opened the exchange by saying fraud is widespread and asking, "you guys are launching a brand new division or or a new office inside the DOJ to go go after this." The official replied that the issue is a "massive" problem and that "we're sending up an entirely new division. A new we're making a new assistant attorney general to focus completely on the fraud problem."

The official described how, in his view, program fraud can be carried out across state lines, recounting an example in which "2 guys from Pennsylvania sign up for benefits to to to run homeless shelters in, Minneapolis, Minnesota. They don't live there." According to the official, the men recruited people experiencing homelessness to sign paperwork and submitted claims for program payments.

The official cited a dollar figure when describing the scheme—"I think, $64,000,000"—and later referred to "a $4,000,000 fraud," an inconsistency that was not resolved in the exchange. The official also characterized the issue bluntly: "The fraud problem is insane."

The agency official did not provide further details in the recorded exchange about the new division's staffing, timeline, investigative scope, or whether additional approvals would be required to establish the position of assistant attorney general. No formal motion, vote, statutory citation, or implementation schedule was offered during the segment.

The exchange focused on the announcement and an illustrative case; operational details and verification of the financial totals were not provided on the record.