Trump Administration Cracks Down on Haitian National Who Made $58 million in 340B Drug Clinic Fraud; Faces Years in Prison and Deportation

Last year, as part of the largest health care fraud takedown in history, prosecutors charged Haitian national Jean Jethro Alexandre with a scheme that ran two clinics as fraudulent prescription mills. On paper, the clinics treated patients for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. In reality, according to the Department of Justice prosecutors, the clinics existed to harvest the deep discounts that the 340B Drug Discount Program confers on HIV medications. This spring, Alexandre was sentenced with prison time and ordered to pay $14.3 million in restitution.

If you’re wondering how Alexandre, a citizen of Haiti, can come to the United States and easily rake in tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money through criminal fraud, your answer is the 340B Drug Discount Program.

The 340B Program was built so that theoretically clinics could buy medicines cheaply and stretch those savings to make treatment affordable for lower-income patients. This may have been a noble goal, but unfortunately the program is rife with abuse. And as the Alexandre case shows, this goes well beyond wasteful practices, clerical errors, or improper billings.

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