By: Jacob Lyle
Oct 10th, 2021
Image Source: sbnation
18 former NBA players were charged on Thursday with pocketing about $2.5 million. They did this by illegally defrauding the league's health and welfare benefit plan. Fake medical and dental expenses were the main illegal tactics by these NBA players. Players teamed up to defraud the supplemental coverage plan by submitting fraudulent claims to get reimbursed for procedures that never happened.
For example, U.S attorney Audrey Strauss stated that "A former player was playing basketball in Taiwan when he supposedly getting $48,000 worth of root canals and crowns on eight teeth..." these are cases that were pocketed by players from 2017 - 2020. Strauss also stated that each defendant made false claims for reimburesments that ranged from $65,000 to $420,000. This is an interesting take when all of these 18 players combined to make $343 million.
Potential consequences could result up to 20 years in prison. Health care fraud, along with wire fraud. As this is new breaking news within the sports and criminal world, it will be intresting to see how these cases unfold.
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