00:00This is a war on fraud, the likes of which you have never seen.
00:05You may have seen the revealing City Journal article from Chris Rubo about Curtis Kirkova,
00:10a respiratory practitioner in California who did most of the billing for HeroCare.
00:15He outsmarted California Medicaid by avoiding the rookie errors that less sophisticated operators make,
00:20like charging for dead people.
00:22He also avoided enrolling in Medicare to reduce scrutiny from CMS.
00:26But the massively increasing sales eventually got everyone's attention.
00:30Here are the numbers.
00:31HeroCare went from billing about $8,000 in 2020 to $400,000 next year to $6 million,
00:37then a whopping $16 million in 2023 and $19 million in 2024.
00:41That's fast.
00:42And there was another unusual pattern.
00:44Our collaboration with the Treasury Department revealed that HeroCare avoided purchasing equipment
00:49and supplies in favor of expensive Mercedes cars and perks.
00:52Then there's the lifestyle.
00:54Kirkova and his husband, Christian, accumulated interest in several lavish California properties,
00:59culminating in a $28 million mansion in Hidden Hills.
01:02Their social media posts showed private planes, expensive cars, luxury travel.
01:07HeroCare had enough irregularities that it was suspended in March of 25.
01:11But Curtis stood up another entity to sneak back into the system.
01:15But this was a different world where we monitor signs of fraud.
01:19So our war room sent a letter to California Medicaid last week asking them to take aggressive action now.
01:24When we see serious warning signs from whistleblowers, from investigative journalists,
01:28or our own data, we don't wait for taxpayer dollars to disappear.
01:31In fact, our investigators are already on site this week.
01:34We move fast.
01:35We investigate aggressively.
01:37And we protect the American taxpayer.
01:39And we'll see you next time there.
01:41We'll see you next time there.
