Nigerian Man Sentenced To Two Years Imprisonment For $1 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme In US
US Police
Henry Ezeonyido, a 37-year-old Nigerian man, has been sentenced in a federal court in Boston, United States, for masterminding a scheme that defrauded multiple health insurance companies of over $1 million through false reimbursement claims for fabricated medical expenses allegedly incurred during international travel.
The US Department of Justice announced this in a press statement on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Ezeonyido, of Taunton, Boston, was sentenced on Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin to 27 months in prison, to be followed by three of supervised release.
He was also ordered to pay $655,313 in restitution and to forfeit $396,998 in criminal proceeds. In February 2025, Ezeonyido pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and six counts of health care fraud.
Ezeonyido was arrested and charged in July 2024 along with co-conspirators Brendon Ashe, Aqiyla Atherton, Darline Cobbler and Ariel Lambert.
Ezeonyido was later indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2024. All four of Ezeonyido’s co-defendants pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme and were subsequently sentenced to probation.
From approximately October 2019 to February 2022, Ezeonyido submitted fraudulent health insurance claims – on his own behalf and on behalf of at least seven other individuals, including Ashe, Atherton, Cobbler and Lambert – to five different health insurance companies for expensive medical treatment that they purportedly received and paid for out-of-pocket while traveling overseas.
Many of the claims included fake traumatic injuries such as stabbings, gunshot wounds and hit and run car accidents that the defendants and others purportedly suffered requiring their hospitalization abroad. In nearly all instances, the individuals were actually in the United States at the time of the purported international medical events.
Some of the individuals on whose behalf Ezeonyido submitted claims were knowing and willful participants in the scheme, while others either had no knowledge of the claims submitted on their behalf or were manipulated into providing their health insurance information, which Ezeonyido then used to submit fraudulent claims, later demanding a cut of the proceeds.
Ezeonyido submitted fabricated documents to the victim health insurance companies in support of the fraudulent claims, including fabricated medical records purporting to show the medical care received, fabricated bank records purporting to show payment to the international treatment facilities and, where the claim related to a fake traumatic injury, fabricated police reports describing the circumstances of the alleged event.
In many instances, the details of the claims – including the purported dates of service, country where the alleged medical event occurred, and nature and circumstances of the alleged injuries – and the fabricated records submitted in support of the claims were nearly identical to one another.
As a result of these fraudulent claims, the victim health insurance companies were billed over $1 million for services that were never provided, resulting in payments totaling approximately $655,313.
Upon receiving these payments from their health insurance companies, Ashe, Cobbler, Lambert and others, paid a portion of the proceeds to Ezeonyido and other co-conspirators, including Atherton, who acted as an intermediary, bringing others into the scheme in exchange for a cut of their paid claims. In total, Ezeonyido retained approximately $396,998 in fraud proceeds.
United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Kimberly Milka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Boston Division; and Anthony DiPaolo, Insurance Fraud Bureau Executive Director made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie A. Wright of the Health Care Fraud Unit prosecuted the case
