On February 3, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Renat Abramov, a dual citizen of the United States and Azerbaijan, pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy for his role in a “sophisticated international” Medicare fraud scheme that was allegedly responsible for laundering more than $8 million dollars through a U.S. bank for an unnamed transnational criminal organization (“TCO”). The DOJ reported that this was the first time that the Department’s Health Care Fraud Unit charged and convicted a former bank employee for conspiring to launder the proceeds of health care fraud. Abramov is currently scheduled to be sentenced on April 20, 2026.
According to federal prosecutors, Abramov was a member of the TCO that devised a health care scheme in which co-conspirators stole the identities of more than one million Americans and used them to submit over $10 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims between 2023 and 2024. Abramov, who formerly worked as a relationship manager of an unnamed bank located in the Eastern District of New York, opened the bank accounts where the fraudulent insurance checks were deposited. Abramov allegedly opened the accounts for individuals who were posing as the owners of fake medical equipment companies using fake corporate registration documents. After the checks were deposited, TCO members allegedly laundered the funds into offshore accounts and cryptocurrency.