New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the indictment, arrest, and arraignment of the owner and manager of a Queens County pharmacy for their roles in a multimillion-dollar drug diversion and kickback scheme involving HIV drugs. Juan Poveda, 32, of Nassau County, owner of CSE Drug Corp. doing business as Santiago Pharmacy (Santiago Pharmacy), and Javier Burbano, 32, of Queens, manager of Santiago Pharmacy in Flushing, Queens, allegedly paid kickbacks to Medicaid recipients in exchange for filling their HIV prescriptions at Santiago Pharmacy and submitted false claims for HIV drugs like Biktarvy that they either obtained illegally or never actually purchased. Court papers allege that Poveda and Burbano stole more than $2.9 million dollars from Amida Care, a Medicaid-funded managed care organization, by billing for drugs, including the expensive HIV retroviral medication Biktarvy, that were either not legally obtained or that never existed. Poveda then allegedly attempted to hide the fraudulently obtained funds by funneling criminal proceeds from Santiago Pharmacy accounts to pass-through bank accounts without any apparent business operations, including B&H Health Distributors Inc. and Pobal Cargo, LLC.
