The scheme involved offshore call centers in the Philippines, money laundering, bribes, kickbacks, U.S. doctors, companies with hidden owners and thousands of cheap, Chinese-made arm, leg, back and neck braces.
The nationwide kickback conspiracy generated some $1 billion in unlawful Medicare payments to some two dozen perpetrators, federal officials said Tuesday in Columbia.
And one of the key pieces of the far-flung operation was a 43-year-old Mount Pleasant man, Andrew Chmiel, whose indictment on charges of money laundering, mail fraud, conspiracy and making false statements was announced Tuesday by U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Sherri Lydon.