A Hyattsville, Md., man has pleaded guilty to stealing physician identities to create fraudulent e-prescribing accounts, the Justice Department said in a Sept. 5 news release.
What happened?
- From September 2020 to May 2023, Benjamin Washington and his co-conspirators stole personal identifying information from dozens of physicians, including DEA and NPI numbers. They used the stolen data to create fake driver’s licenses and bribed telecom employees to perform SIM swaps, gaining control of the physicians’ phone numbers.
- With these identities, the group opened fraudulent e-prescribing accounts and studied prescription patterns to avoid detection.
- They ultimately submitted more than 5,600 fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances, including oxycodone and promethazine with codeine.
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