A Colombian woman wanted by U.S. authorities for defrauding the country’s health care system out of $5 million was arrested in Medellin Monday and awaits extradition.
Magda Luz Restrepo Pineda who went by Magda Luz Lavin in the U.S., owned and operated medical clinics in Miami and Key West that purportedly provided intraveneous infusion treatments to HIV patients. She then allegedly submitted false claims to the state-run social insurance program, Medicare, for expensive drugs that were never administered to patients.
When patients did receive treatments they were typically nothing more than an injection of vitamin B and C. Patients were allegedly offered hefty kickbacks by the clinic if they agreed to sign false treatment sheets.
Restrepo reportedly defrauded the U.S. government out of more than $5 million in compensation between 2000 and 2002.
The 53-year-old was charged by a Florida court in 2005 and fled to Colombia before the end of her trial in 2006. She was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. Soon after, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation issued her arrest warrant on a plethora of charges that included conspiracy to defraud the U.S., health care fraud, money laundering and failure to appear before a court.
She is thought to have worked as an interior designer in Colombia following her escape, and went by the names of Anne Kloss and Anne Maria Prockoz.
Restrepo was transferred to a holding cell in Bogota and awaits processing for her extradition to the U.S.