A south Florida insurance broker is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last week to a $134 million scheme that fraudulently enrolled thousands of people in Affordable Care Act health insurance plans.
Dafud Iza, 54, of Pembroke Pines, signed a plea agreement Friday with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida. He once held a property and casualty producer’s license, a temporary life insurance broker’s license and a health insurance license, all of which are now invalid, according to the Florida Department of Financial Services.
His appointment with Liberty Mutual Insurance expired in 2012. Iza’s most recent brokerage was not named in court records but his Linkedin profile notes that he was director of operations at Compass Health Insurance in Tequesta, Florida, since May 2024. Before that, he was executive vice president at Fiorella Insurance Agency in Stuart for almost 8 years.
“Iza and his accomplices targeted vulnerable, low-income individuals experiencing homelessness, unemployment, and mental health and substance abuse disorders, and knew that ‘street marketers’ working on their behalf offered bribes to induce those individuals to enroll in subsidized ACA plans,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
The scheme worked like this, according to the department and Iza’s felony information sheet: The ACA plan, also known as ObamaCare, pays tax credits or subsidies to insurance plans that enroll people in the program. Iza’s crew reportedly submitted fraudulent applications for individuals whose income did not meet the minimum requirements to be eligible for the subsidies. They deceptively marketed the subsidized ACA plans to ineligible consumers and falsely inflated consumers’ incomes to obtain the federal subsidies.
The Affordable Care Act plan, backed by the federal government, paid $134 million in improper subsidies, prosecutors said in court documents.
Iza faces up to 10 years in prison and some level of restitution.
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