Additional Coverage:
- CEO ‘caught boarding Nigeria flight’ arrested over alleged $7M fraud targeting US veterans (irishstar.com)
A California healthcare executive, accused of swindling over $7 million from a program designed to help elderly veterans, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday while allegedly attempting to flee to Nigeria.
Federal prosecutors state that Cashmir Chinedu Luke, the chief executive of Four Corners Health LLC, is now facing criminal charges for allegedly billing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for thousands of home care services that were never actually provided. Disturbingly, some of these fraudulent claims even documented services supposedly delivered to veterans “weeks after they had died,” according to prosecutors.
Court filings reveal that between December 2019 and July 2024, Luke’s Fresno-based organization was contracted to provide non-skilled in-home support to VA beneficiaries across multiple counties, including San Francisco, Contra Costa, Fresno, Tulare, Merced, Mariposa, and Madera. During this period, he allegedly submitted approximately 10,000 fraudulent claims through the Veterans Community Care Program.
These claims, as detailed in court documents, included “duplicate claims for care actually provided, claims for days caretakers were not present with veterans, claims for hours of care beyond those actually worked by caretakers, and claims of care for veterans who were actually dead.”
Luke, who was the sole owner and billing representative of Four Corners Health LLC, is accused of misleading the VA’s third-party administrator to recover these improper payments. The Department of Justice (DOJ) stated in a press release that “Luke personally profited from the scheme as the sole owner of the bank account that received the reimbursement payments. Luke spent reimbursement payments immediately after being paid by the VA, either by spending lavishly on personal expenses or by promptly transferring the funds across a network of bank accounts throughout Asia and Africa.”
The U.S. Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General is leading the investigation, with Assistant U.S.
Attorney Calvin Lee prosecuting the case. If convicted, Luke could face a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
This is not Luke’s first brush with the law; he previously served a 27-month federal sentence after a 2009 conviction in Maryland for conspiracy to commit identification document fraud and aggravated identity theft.