A Moscow-based criminal organization involved in a $2 billion international healthcare fraud scheme was dismantled, with three members receiving lengthy sentences over their convictions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday, May 19, 2026.

Defendant Anthony Santamaria received 10 years in prison for his involvement in the healthcare conspiracy, in which the criminal organization submitted $2 billion in fraudulent prescription claims to private insurers in the US. District Judge William F. Kuntz II handed down the sentence to Santamaria in a Brooklyn court.

Earlier this month, Santamaria’s co-conspirators, Hershel Tsikman and Hafizullah Ebady, received 120 months and 97 months, respectively. In addition to their prison sentences, Judge Kuntz ordered Santamaria and Ebady to forfeit $3.2 million and $1.8 million, respectively.

 

All three defendants will also need to pay restitution to their victims. However, the amount to be paid has not yet been determined.

Three other co-conspirators in the case are yet to get their sentencing. On the other hand, a co-defendant, Dela Saidazim, was sentenced to time served in December 2022.

The ringleader of the conspiracy and the criminal organization is a US citizen named Brian Sutton, who, authorities believe, lives in a foreign country and is currently at large.

Under Sutton’s direction, co-conspirators managed Utah-then-Russia call centers, pharmacy operations, remote billing teams, and overseas laundering.

As per the press release issued by DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs, which cited court filings and documents, the defendants fraudulently billed private health care benefit programs (Private Insurers) from 2017 to 2022. They contacted beneficiaries who were signed with the Private Insurers through call centers they first had in Utah and later in Russia.

 

The co-conspirators then cold-called patients and offered free medications without any medical exams. They generated fraudulent prescriptions using physicians’ names and National Provider Identifier (NPI) numbers, regardless of whether the patients actually needed them.

They hired doctors to review prescriptions issued by nurses and physicians’ assistants who allegedly conducted telemedicine visits with beneficiaries. However, most of the time, these visits never really took place. Despite generating and reviewing false prescriptions, beneficiaries did not receive any medications.

Additionally, the gang acquired 75+ US pharmacies through straw owners, installing software that allowed Moscow-based billers to submit claims remotely.

Third-party billing records revealed that the defendants submitted fraudulent prescriptions worth $1.97 billion. Private insurers paid over $758 million on fraudulent claims.

 

“To conceal their involvement in the scheme, the defendants operated under multiple aliases, funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through pass-through shell companies and straw owners, used end-to-end encrypted communications and moved operations overseas,” court records revealed.

Defendants also bought and operated several brick-and-mortar pharmacies through straw owners in places including Manhattan, Pennsylvania, Brooklyn, Michigan, Staten Island, New Jersey, Texas, and Alabama. Additionally, they laundered millions in overseas proceeds through pass-through shell companies.

Sutton directed the entire operation, under aliases ‘Mike Summers,’ ‘Mike Miller,’ and ‘Ryan White’ to conceal his identity throughout the conspiracy.

On November 7, 2023, an indictment charged Sutton with healthcare fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

The federal case is being handled by the Business and Securities Fraud Section at the Office of Public Affairs, Justice Department.