The 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown produced 455 defendants and a $6.5 billion figure. Behind every one of those numbers is a person whose case will rise or fall on facts the press release never mentions. 

On June 23, federal prosecutors in Boston announced charges against Bhamin Chhatrapati, 40, of Stoughton, Massachusetts, in an alleged scheme to bill Medicare for more than $5 million in durable medical equipment. The case is one thread in the Department of Justice’s 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, a coordinated action that named 455 defendants across 56 districts and claimed more than $6.5 billion in losses. 

The charge is conspiracy to commit health care fraud. The allegation is that Mr. Chhatrapati and others used telemarketers to gather Medicare beneficiary information, generated paperwork making medically unnecessary braces look prescribed and necessary, billed the program, and paid the telemarketers for each approved order. Mr. Chhatrapati has not been convicted of anything. He is presumed innocent, and the burden of proving otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt sits entirely with the government. That last sentence is not a formality. It is the essence of the task before the government, and it is formidable. 

“A national takedown is built to feel overwhelming. Four hundred fifty-five names, billions of dollars, a podium full of agencies. I tell clients to remember that none of that machinery is evidence against you. What matters is your case, your role, and whether the government can actually prove what it claims. For many of the people we represent, a fraud charge is not only about liberty. It can impact a green card, a career, a family’s place in this country. That is precisely why you do not face it alone, and you do not face it unprepared.” — Vikas S. Dhar, Principal and Cofounder, Dhar Law, LLP. 

Read the second number 

The announcement leads with $5.1 million billed. Further down, it notes that roughly $2.6 million was actually paid. In a fraud case, the gap between those two figures reveals leverage. Federal exposure in fraud cases turns largely on a loss calculation under the Sentencing Guidelines, and the government routinely reaches for the largest number it can defend. The key idea is intended loss against actual loss: the line between an order submitted and a dollar paid, and the role one person played in a chain of many. 

Each of these is contestable, and each can move the exposure by years. A conspiracy charge has its own architecture. The government does not have to prove the scheme succeeded. It has to prove an agreement and the intent to join it. That sounds expansive, and it is. But it also puts the fight exactly where a strong defense wants it: on knowledge and intent.

 “I spent more than twelve years prosecuting fraud for the Justice Department, much of it in the Fraud Section, so I know how these cases are assembled from the inside. They are built on documents, billing data, and the testimony of people who have cut their own deals with the government. That construction has seams; the loss figure is often inflated; the cooperators have incentives. The leap from a suspicious billing pattern to a knowing agreement to commit a crime is the precise leap the evidence frequently cannot make. Knowing where the government’s case is solid, and where it only looks solid, is where a defense is won.” — Paul J. Andrews, Of Counsel, Dhar Law, LLP; former Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Fraud Section

Paperwork is not the same as a crime 

Billing operations move enormous volumes of documents, and the people inside them occupy very different roles. Some design a fraud. Some process forms, answer phones, or move data without knowing that a signature was hollow or that a brace was never needed. Criminal law draws a hard line between those positions. The government’s analytics do not. Data flags surface outliers. An outlier is a reason to look. It is not proof that a person agreed to break the law.

“Before I practiced law, I spent more than two decades in law enforcement and then ran global investigations for a Fortune 500 medical device company. I have sat on the other side of the table, following the paper and the data to see where they actually lead. In billing operations, most people are doing a job inside a system someone else designed. There is a real difference between handling a document and conspiring to falsify one, and that difference is where many of these cases come apart. We investigate before we react, because the facts almost always have more to say than the indictment does.” — Joseph F. Hennessey, Of Counsel, Dhar Law, LLP; former Senior Global Investigator and 23-year law enforcement veteran. 

The exposure rarely stops at the indictment 

A health care fraud charge tends to travel with company. There can be parallel civil liability under the False Claims Act, exclusion from federal programs, asset forfeiture, and, for anyone who is not a United States citizen, immigration consequences that can outlast any sentence. A fraud conviction can be treated as an aggravated felony and a crime involving moral turpitude. That means a person can serve their time and still lose the right to remain in the country they call home. These tracks run at the same time, and a decision that helps one can wound another. Coordinating them is its own discipline. It is the work this firm was built to do.

 “The worst mistakes in a federal case are made early, by good people who believe that talking before counsel will make the problem smaller. It rarely does. Our job is to step in before that happens, to protect you on every front at once, the charge, the money, your record, your status, and to hand you a strategy instead of a reaction. You did not plan for this. We have the biggest umbrella, and we know this storm.” — Vikas S. Dhar 

A closing word, and an open door

The takedown was engineered to produce a number and a headline. Your case is not a number. It is a specific set of facts, a specific role, and a specific set of choices still in front of you. The earliest of those choices, made before a proffer, before an interview, before a single word is volunteered, often shape everything that follows. If you or someone in your family has been charged in this takedown, or has reason to believe an investigation is coming, the moment to build a defense is now, not after the next conversation with an agent. We have stood beside people facing the federal government’s full weight, and we know how to make the prosecution prove its case, contact Dhar Law, LLP. We will get through this together. 

Dhar Law, LLP Schrafft’s City Center Power House 529 Main Street, Suite P200, Charlestown, MA 02129 (617) 829-9747 · dharlawllp.com 

The Defense Brief — Boston · Southern District of New York · Washington D.C. · Eastern District of Virginia · Federal Courts Nationwide Attorney advertising. 

This post is for general informational purposes, is not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The defendant referenced is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.