A Texas Department of Insurance investigator and crime analyst helped identify a Russian national who reportedly filed $400 million in fake Medicare claims.
Nikolai Buzolin was living in Houston in 2025 when he created a durable medical equipment company and stole patients’ and doctors’ identities to submit fake claims to health plans that administer Medicare Part C. He opened eight bank accounts to deposit the $1.7 million he received in reimbursements, according to the TDI.
A few patients checked their explanation of benefits and noticed that they were getting medical equipment that they didn’t need coming from doctors they’d never met, according to Sgt. Kevin Mannion, a TDI fraud unit investigator.
Mannion is part of the FBI Task Force in Houston that surveilled and investigated Buzolin. When a task force went to his house in Houston, he had already fled. A TDI crime analyst then tracked his car to Los Angeles where local FBI agents arrested Buzolin as he was boarding a plane to Russia.
Buzolin faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
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