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Israeli citizen in LA charged with cheating Medicare out of roughly $27 million
US prosecutors on Tuesday announced the arrest in Los Angeles of an Israeli citizen charged with conspiracy to defraud Medicare of some $27 million for hospice care, some of which he allegedly fabricated using dead beneficiaries’ data that he purchased from a local mortuary worker.
LA resident Oren David Shachar, 59, is one of 455 defendants charged in a “strategically coordinated, nationwide law enforcement action” against health care fraud, the US Department of Justice said. The defendants were implicated in “opioid abuse schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in false claims and significant patient harm, including death,” the DOJ said.
Shachar and alleged co-conspirator Abraham Shin were arrested on Thursday, while another alleged co-conspirator, Jeannie Choi, was arrested on Monday, according to the DOJ.
All three are charged with 16 counts, including health-care fraud and aggravated identity theft. If charged on all counts, the defendants possibly face several decades behind bars, the DOJ said.
Shachar and Shin pleaded not guilty at the US District Court in Los Angeles and will stand trial on August 11, while Choi was not yet arraigned, according to the DOJ statement.
The statement said that Shachar, who owns four LA-area hospices, in 2021 started billing the Medicare system for treatments purportedly rendered to people who did not qualify for Medicare-funded hospice care because they were not terminally ill; people who were referred to his hospices through bribes to patient recruiters; and people who were already dead.
Massive $27M LA hospice fraud revealed as medical scammer used dead patients to fund lavish lifestyle: feds https://t.co/fuFrHdAIfu pic.twitter.com/BxfFNIimFQ
— California Post (@californiapost) June 23, 2026
Choi, who worked at a LA-based mortuary, and Shin, her acquaintance, in 2025 allegedly sold Shachar both patient referrals and personal information about deceased beneficiaries.
That information, as well as details collected in interviews with surviving relatives, served Shachar to falsify records so that it appeared the deceased beneficiaries were treated at his hospices, which could then charge Medicare for the treatment, US prosecutors said. Shachar allegedly paid Choi and Shin between $1,000 and $3,000 for each deceased patient fraudulently registered at Shachar’s hospices.
From 2021 to March this year, Shachar’s hospices fraudulently billed Medicare approximately $27,731,000 and received $26,908,000, according to a case summary, which said Shachar spent some of his earnings “on a partial downpayment for a Rolls Royce Phantom.”
