Dr. Jorge Zamora-Quezada, a rheumatologist based in South Texas has been charged with 240 US million dollars healthcare fraud and money laundering scheme. In a federal indictment, the Justice Department accused Zamora-Quezada of falsely diagnosing patients with degenerative diseases and giving those patients chemotherapy and other toxic medications they did not need. He funded his extravagant and lavish lifestyle with the money he obtained from thousands of patients including children and elderly.

The Texas doctor and his partners created false patient records and hid thousands of actual medical records in a rundown barn in the Rio Grande Valley. Zamora-Quezada, 61, owns a six-seat Eclipse 500 business jet bought with some of the 50 million dollars he was paid since 2000 administering a host of treatments to countless patients. And drives between various homes and properties in his blue 2017 Maserati Granturismo Coupe. The Justice Department has alleged that his lavish lifestyle is achieved by performing unnecessary procedures and prescribing costly medication to thousands of patients.

A former patient of Zamora-Quezada, Maria Zapata told CNN that the doctor diagnosed her with arthritis and gave her injections saying it would help her knee. She said the treatment didn’t help and she noticed discoloration in her leg. Her family doctor told her she didn’t have arthritis and other doctors expressed concern. Another patient Raymond Orta went to Zamora-Quezada for joint pain and the doctor diagnosed him with rheumatoid arthritis and administered heavy ‘chemo-level drugs’. Orta gained more than a hundred pounds before he finally went to another doctor.

“Today’s indictment is the first step in holding Dr. Zamora-Quezada accountable for his allegedly egregious criminal conduct,” C.J. Porter, special agent of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s Dallas Region said in a statement. “His patients trusted him and presumed his integrity. In return he allegedly engaged in a scheme of false diagnoses and bogus courses of treatment and doled out prescriptions for unnecessary and harmful medications, all for his personal financial gain and with no regard for patient well-being.”

The indictment against Zamora-Quezada could land him in prison for decades. The Texas doctor is in custody and a court date has been set for July 2, Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said on Thursday. Zamora-Quezada owned medical practices in Brownsville, Edinberg and San Antonio, primarily practicing rheumatology. But various shell organisations were built to obscure the flow of money stemming from excessive and fraudulent treatments, the indictment said. According to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, health care fraud costs the US 68 billion dollar each year.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 18, 2018 09:44 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).