Native Americans are being targeted in what officials call a multi-million-dollar health care scam. Scammers are targeting Native people from the Navajo Nation and other reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota and bringing them to behavioral health residential facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, for treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues. In some cases, the victims are intoxicated or given alcohol on the trip.
The scammers target people found at places like gas stations, grocery store parking lots and at bus stops. They promise food, shelter and treatment, but ultimately leave them stranded. In some cases, Native people had to jump out windows and climb over walls to escape the facilities.
Gallup police say they are still looking for 14 people who were reported missing over the past 18 months after they went to Arizona seeking treatment. In total 32 people who are believed to have gone to group homes were reported missing to the Gallup Police Department. As many as 7,000 Native Americans have been recruited to illegitimate sober living homes in recent years.
When the patients arrive, the scammers ask them to get food through food stamps or change their driver’s license so they can get Arizona Medicaid benefits. The homes receive government funding to provide patients with therapy, but often no therapy services are ever actually provided. Gallup Mayor Louis Bonaguidi says it’s a health care scam for Arizona and a human trafficking scheme in New Mexico.
The FBI is now investigating over a 100 unlicensed group homes for health care fraud, saying the organizers are “allegedly defrauding the insurance system.” It’s unclear how many residential facilities are engaging in fraudulent practices. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System paid out $53 million in 2019 to fraudulent sobriety programs. This year, Hobbs said it rose to $668 million.
The lack of options in New Mexico makes facilities in Phoenix seem particularly appealing. Four Corners Detox Recovery Center is the only residential facility in Gallup. With 45 beds, it houses 30 people for 30-day stays and reserves the remainder for those who are detoxing.
Arizona has a dedicated hotline (2-1-1, press 7) for individuals who have been affected by the fraudulent centers, and the FBI has created an online callout form that seeks “victims who may have been recruited to live in and receive services in group homes (Behavioral Health Residential Facilities) located in Phoenix” between January 2020 and the present.
Anyone who would do this to the native people of this land need to be executed publicly their assets taken and given to the tribe from which it’s members have been scammed.