Fascinating article on the ingenuity of man
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Doctors, lawyers, and criminals; I’m just surprised that no real estate agents are involved — yet.
MS-13, Russian mobsters use migrants in elaborate injury scam — even getting spinal surgery to pull it off: sources
It’s the melting pot of all scams.
Russian gangsters, MS-13 members, and a cadre of corrupt surgeons, lawyers and lenders are pulling off the latest big con in the city: bogus personal-injury lawsuits where immigrants go under the knife to help their twisted ruse.
Migrants and other desperate New Yorkers are pressured into getting unneeded spinal fusion surgery and other operations to boost the value of their fake-accident claims, according to court records, insurance investigators and law-enforcement sources.
Doctors cash in on the sick swindle by performing back and neck fusions, allowing fraudsters to swipe billions through bogus insurance filings, according to court filings and sources.
The racket typically involves a healthy person taking a seemingly minor tumble on the street or at a construction site, then claiming a devastating injury that requires multiple surgeries. A crooked surgeon fuses healthy vertebrae with screws and plates, leading to a lawsuit against a business or landlord or both. Settlements start at $1 million each but can go much higher
“One-five is now on the cheap side,” said an insurance industry lawyer who asked for anonymity.
These scams rely on law firms that take on hundreds of such cases, along with high-profile doctors, sketchy lending firms that hard-sell migrants into borrowing to cover the costs, and an army of “runners” who recruit victims and orchestrate their falls, according to legal papers and sources familiar with the mix of schemes.
The set-up is fed by a seemingly endless supply of low-income dupes willing to risk their health for a quick score.
“They’re regularly recruiting migrants and homeless people and in some cases are proactively arranging for them to come to New York,” a private investigator told The Post.
So-called “shot callers” pocket most of the windfall settlements, while those who pose as injured receive as little as $1,000 each, according to testimony in one case. Their share gets shriveled by sky-high interest on loans they’re told they need for medical and legal expenses. Others can collect up to six figures.
Russian hoodlums are suspected of running lending firms that fund trip-and-fall lawsuits and surgeries — often at hugely inflated rates to goose settlement figures, sources told The Post. “They’re well-versed in this kind of thing,” said a recently retired NYPD supervisor.
MS-13 leaders provide a pipeline of Hispanic migrants, some who are brought to New York specifically to fake injuries, sources said. They said the gang ropes in unsuspecting border crossers with offers to drive them to the city, pay for meals and provide spending cash before pressuring them into phony accidents.
A private investigator said an MS-13 informant at a construction company revealed plans for a worker to fall off a ladder — and it happened just as the tipster said it would, said the sleuth, who declined to say where or when the fraud occurred to protect the identity of his source.
Setting up fake falls is “so successful for MS-13,” he said. “Rival gangs are now trying it.”
But MS-13 leaders are not experienced in white collar crime and don’t know how to pull off phony injury fraud, according to gang expert Lou Savelli, who founded the NYPD gang unit and now consults for police and other law enforcement agencies. “That’s where the Russians come in,” he said. “They have the lawyers.”
NYPD investigators found one integrated Russian-led operation — with doctors, lawyers, lenders and physical therapists all in the same office building, said a former police supervisor who declined to give further details. “It was one-stop shopping. Everyone was in the same place,” he said, adding that authorities were unable to build a case against the group.
The Russian-MS-13 partnership “is a perfect marriage for them,” said a second ex-NYPD source.
Insurance insiders claim losses have tripled since the pandemic, with payouts so massive they’re driving up the cost of living for all New Yorkers.
One insurer, Tradesman Program Managers insurance firm of Poughkeepsie, a carrier covering contractors and construction companies in the city, says it forked over $142 million in 2022, three times the $36 million it paid out in 2018. It claims it has been hit with 650 allegedly fraudulent suits over the last four years.
“We’re talking billions collectively across the city,” said an insurance executive who asked not to be identified.
Much more at the link.
Aside from the billions of dollars being stolen from insurance companies, the cost of which is passed on to customers, the sad part of this story is that the (willing, if stupid) patient-participants get next to nothing for undergoing an operation that can leave them with lifelong pain.
One “victim" who sat down on a sidewalk and then was persuaded to participate] was directed to Dr. Michael Gerling, an orthopedic surgeon and former NYU Langone director in Brooklyn who describes himself as New York’s “top spine surgeon”…. Gerling performed two surgeries: a lumbar and a cervical fusion, she added. Neither procedure did anything but create more pain, according to Ortiz.
“The pain is unbearable since the operation on my lower back,” she told The Post. “I feel like a 60-year-old woman in the situation I find myself in. I don’t know how I will continue working.”
This article holds personal interest to me because a spinal surgeon has recommended I undergo spinal fusion; after looking into the procedure, its lengthy recovery time, and the chances of a full restoration of my ability to walk more than 100’ without pain, I’ve decided to live with things as they are. As these victims are learning for themselves, I wouldn’t do it if they paid me.
