MIAMI, Fla. — A man from Palm Beach County was sent to jail because he bought and sold more than 2.6 million Medicare beneficiary identification numbers.
Charles William McElwee, who is 36 years old, was sentenced to 41 months in jail in federal court after pleading guilty to buying and selling personal information, including Medicare beneficiary identification numbers.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (USAO) said that this is one of the first cases brought under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).
MACRA makes it illegal, among other things, to buy, sell, or give away Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary information without the right to do so.
As part of his plea, McElwee admitted that he and his co-conspirators used “data mining” and “social engineering techniques” to get information about Medicare beneficiaries, which McElwee then advertised and sold online. Names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, and Medicare recipient identification numbers were among the pieces of information that were sold.
The indictment says that some illegal deals involved people from other countries, like sellers in the Philippines and customers in Egypt.
The sentence was announced by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markenzy Lapointe, the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Miami Region, Omar Pérez Aybar, and the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Miami Field Office, Jeffrey B. Veltri.
The case was looked into by the HHS-OIG Miami and the FBI Miami. It was brought to court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Juenger. Asset seizure is being taken care of by Assistant U.S. Attorney Daren Grove.
Medicare recipients who think they are victims of medical identity theft can call the HHS-OIG hotline at 1-800-HHS-TIPS (800-447-8477) or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) to make a complaint.
