Federal agents carried out pre-dawn raids across the Los Angeles area on Thursday, and the California Post reported that SWAT teams and agents were seen scaling the walls of a Tarzana mansion belonging to chiropractor Hany Malek. The Justice Department announced charges against 15 defendants, including six medical professionals, over health care fraud schemes it says involved about $1.8 billion in fraudulent claims to government and private insurance programs. Media outlets are rounding that figure up to nearly $2 billion. The biggest piece is a $1.6 billion sham substance abuse treatment scheme, which the Justice Department calls the largest of its type ever prosecuted by the department. Prosecutors allege that father and son Nathan and David Young directed "body brokers" to recruit homeless people and people attending addiction support groups, then lured them to California for treatment that was a front for billing insurers.

A separate case targets Malek and his business partner, 78-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon Harold Tabaie, who are accused of billing Medicare about $134 million for medically unnecessary atherectomy procedures, which use a bladed catheter to clear plaque from arteries. Prosecutors say those procedures injured patients. The DOJ also cited more than $138 million in Medicare billing across three hospice fraud schemes in which the patients were not terminally ill. FBI Director Kash Patel said eight arrests were made and seven more defendants were charged, including six medical professionals. Big questions remain, including how long these alleged schemes ran unnoticed, how many patients were hurt, and how much of the money can be recovered. All of this is still allegation, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.