Identity Theft, Medicare Fraud, Mortgage Fraud, Tax Fraud, White Collar Crime

NY Post: South Florida is the Organized Fraud Capital of America

According to the NY Post article Over the past decade or so the three most populous South Florida counties Miami Dade Broward and Palm Beach have become less renowned for old school Miami Vice style drug shootouts than for scammers stealing hundreds of millions from the government banks and individuals by using laptops stolen identities and fake medical procedures

In a 2015 article, the NY Post claims that South Florida has become the nation’s “organized fraud capital,” with identity theft tax fraud schemes leading the way. Identity theft, the fastest-growing crime in South Florida, is being used to gather names and Social Security numbers in order to file fraudulent tax returns and collect a refund check.  The number of false federal income tax returns is 46 times the national average in South Florida.

Rounding out the top 3 organized fraud crimes prevalent in South Florida are Medicare fraud and mortgage fraud.  From 2007-2014, nine regional “strike forces” of the DOJ, the Treasury Department, and HHS charged about 2,300 people who had falsely billed Medicare for $7 billion, with more than 1,500 of those defendants located in South Florida.  And since at least 2009, Florida has led the nation in mortgage fraud as a percentage of the number of loans originated, with the South Florida metropolitan area ranked No. 1 nationally, with 12.3 percent of all such fraud reports in 2013.

Read the NY Post article here: https://nypost.com/2015/07/29/south-florida-is-the-organized-fraud-capital-of-america/