California men allegedly billed Medicare $3.5M, switched firms after fraud checks denied claims

Representative Image (AI-generated) Two California men allegedly created a series of medical-equipment companies with no physical storefronts or warehouses, used them to submit more than $3.5 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare and moved on to new companies when the previous ones began facing fraud-related claim denials, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The case involves Nouman Mustafa, 36, of Torrance, and Mohsin Khan, 40, of Bakersfield, who were indicted by a federal grand jury on September 17 on multiple counts of health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. The charges were announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.Companies allegedly created to appear legitimateAccording to court records cited by the Justice Department, Mustafa and Khan allegedly created a series of shell companies between January 2025 and January 2026. The businesses were designed to appear to be legitimate durable medical equipment (DME) companies that could provide medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries. Investigators allege that the companies did not actually operate like genuine medical-equipment businesses. None of them had physical storefro...