The FBI is very much in the news right now, in an unfortunate way, but thinking about
the Bureau got me to wondering about
just how often the agency becomes involved in the investigation of crimes that have a cancer component to them. And specifically whether this is due to fraud involving the disease, misappropriation of funds, or whatever.
Well, a little research reveals that, yes, there have been a number of cases of illegality involving cancer that the FBI has handled in both past and recent times. These cases have involved some aspect of having or dealing with the disease, with the FBI website itself detailing how these cases were eventually resolved.
Of course the obvious first question to answer is: when does the FBI become involved in such cases, and not leave the cases to local or state law enforcement agencies?
The short answer is that the FBI investigates "federal offenses." From a website:
" ... the term ‘federal offense’ or ‘federal crime’ refers to any act that is performed in violation of the U.S. federal legislations. Such crimes are prosecuted in federal courts. This includes many crimes that, if they did not occur on U.S. federal property or on Indian reservations, would otherwise fall under state or local law." Specifically, this can involve (from the FBI's own website):
https://www.fbi.gov/investigateSo FBI investigations which have involved cancer must have had a federal offense component to them.
Curiously, I was unable to locate all that many really useful individual articles on the web dealing specifically with FBI involvement in cancer cases. So I went to the agency's website itself:
https://www.fbi.gov/servicesand used its "search" box (upper right corner) to search
cancer
This retrieved several screens of more than a hundred such cases, each linked to a clickable case descript
ion.
I did some quick browsing and skimming of these cases that were listed, and came to some conclusions:
1. Almost ALL of these cases, all of those screens, were cases involving some kind of fraud to get money. ("Follow the money" certainly applies here)
2. There were multiple cases listed of the following specific kinds of fraud:
Fake claims by individuals of having cancer in order to get money from insurance, charities, people in general. (By far the most common situation)
Cancer researchers embezzling grant funds
Unscrupulous lab workers doing false cancer diagnoses in order to defraud Medicare or other insurance
Unscrupulous doctors billing Medicare for false diagnoses and treatments
There was even one case of a fellow who told his employer (falsely) that he had cancer, and was then granted paid medical leave, which he used for several months, until he was "busted" after company follow-up revealed what he was doing. (Yes, some people are kinda stupid).
But one case summary I read seemed especially egregious, when a doctor actually prescribed
unnecessary chemotherapy and submitted $225 million in bills for it to Medicare:
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/detroit/news/press-releases/detroit-area-doctor-admits-to-providing-medically-unnecessary-chemotherapy-to-patientsAnd wire fraud seemed to be the most common reason why the FBI had become involved in these cases.
Of course after searching cancer in general, I naturally searched the site for cases involving PCa, but found none listed. It may be that PCa cases are included in the general cancer cases described above.
(Okay, technically, PCa is mentioned in passing in the case descript
ion of the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing. One of the terrorists who was captured was described as having it).
Conclusions from this brief study? Well, one that comes to mind is the old saying
Money is not the root of all evil. It's the whole (expletive) tree!as this observation would seem to apply to all of these cases.
One other thought is that while the FBI seems to be taking it on the chin from some people right now (and I prefer to believe
only some), the Bureau is to be
appreciated for apprehending bad guys like the ones described above, and protecting us from such.