Sentenced for selling nearly 3 million Medicare beneficiary numbers

A man residing in the county of palm beach (Florida) was sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison for buying and selling more than 2.6 million identification numbers of beneficiaries of Medicare (the public health system), reported this Tuesday the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern District of the state.

Charles William McElwee36, had pleaded guilty to the charges against him, including that of “conspire to buy and sell numbers of beneficiaries of the Medicare”.

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As part of his guilty plea, McElwee admitted that he and his accomplices used “data mining techniques” and of “social engineering” to collect information from Medicare beneficiaries, which McElwee then advertised and sold online.

The trafficked information included beneficiary names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers and Medicare beneficiary identification numbers, the statement from the Prosecutor’s Office said.

According to the indictment, some of the illicit transactions involved foreigners, including sellers in Philippines and buyers in Egypt.

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The Prosecutor’s Office urged Medicare beneficiaries who believe they have been victims of medical identity theft to file a complaint on the hotline provided by Medicare.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.