Federal investigators have dismantled a nationwide fraud scheme that sold $250 million in fake nursing diplomas to 15,000 people.
Many of those diploma buyers have since disappeared into America’s health care system, according to Isaac Bledsoe, a federal Special Agent in Charge.
The operation worked heavily through close-knit Haitian immigrant networks in South Florida.
It recruited people who wanted to purchase nursing credentials rather than complete the education and training required to earn them.
The investigation began after authorities received a tip involving someone seeking roughly $16,000 from a family member.
The money was allegedly needed to obtain a nursing diploma from a school in South Florida.
Bledsoe is the Special Agent in Charge of the Inspector General’s Miami office at Health and Human Services.
He said his agency quickly launched an undercover operation to investigate the tip.
“So believe it or not, we had an individual whose family member had reached out to them, asked if they could borrow somewhere around $16,000, that if they had the money, there’s a school in South Florida that will give them a nursing diploma,” Bledsoe told Full Measure.
Investigators had an undercover agent contact one of the South Florida schools.
The agent presented himself as someone with no health care background who nevertheless wanted to become a nurse and purchase a diploma.
“So we started off with an undercover immediately, where we had an undercover reach out to one of these schools in South Florida, put themselves out as an individual who has no healthcare background but looking to buy, wants to be a nurse, looking to buy a nursing diploma and ‘what can they do?’”
In spring 2021, the undercover agent entered a small storefront in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
There, he spoke with business owner Geralda Adrien about obtaining a nursing degree without completing training or attending classes.
Adrien described a process that involved testing connected to a school in New York.
She told the undercover agent that he would not have to travel to New York to take the test.
“It depends on how ready you are,” Adrien told the agent posing as a prospective nurse.
“Because if you’re ready to go now, I have a way of getting you tested in a school in New York. It is the easiest state for processing. You don’t have to go to New York, you can test here [Florida] but you just get processed through the board of New York.”
Adrien’s companies operated as brokers within the broader operation.
Prosecutors said they conspired with owners and operators of actual accredited nursing schools in Florida that produced fraudulent diplomas and transcripts.
The undercover agent ultimately purchased a fake diploma for $16,000.
That transaction helped investigators unravel what the was described as one of the largest health care fraud schemes in recent United States history.
Bledsoe said the fraudsters sold $250 million in bogus diplomas across the country to 15,000 supposed nurses.
Many of those individuals have vanished into the health care system, creating a daunting problem for authorities and state nursing boards.
Prosecutors said the people behind the scheme used the proceeds to fund lavish lifestyles.
Their spending included luxury homes, cars and travel purchased with money collected from diploma buyers.
Forty three people have been charged in connection with the fraud, and all of them have been convicted so far.
They are serving prison sentences ranging from four to six years.
Those convicted include Adrien and Johanah Napoleon, owner of the Palm Beach School of Nursing.
Eunide Sanon, owner of Siena College of Health, and Carleen Noreus, owner of Carleen Health Institute, were also convicted.
Noreus pleaded guilty during her trial in June to selling nearly 3,000 diplomas.
She was ordered to forfeit nearly $4 million, while others involved in the operation were ordered to surrender millions more.
The damage extends beyond the fraudsters and their profits.
Unqualified people holding nursing credentials have treated vulnerable patients in hospitals, nursing homes and clinics, creating what has been described as a direct threat to patient safety.
Bledsoe said federal authorities did not pursue the people who purchased the phony nursing credentials because buying bogus degrees is not a federal crime.
That has left states working to identify the diploma holders and revoke licenses.
The names of two dozen Florida nursing schools that have since been shut down are now posted on nursing board websites.
States are taking steps to find the impersonators and remove fraudulent credentials from the health care system.
More information about the investigation was scheduled to air on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
WATCH:
The report examines how the undercover operation exposed the diploma brokers, participating schools, and the massive scale of the scheme.
