13 FDNY EMS, NYPD Employees Accused In Insurance Scheme
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- More than a dozen current and former FDNY and NYPD employees have been arrested in a major insurance fraud bust.
EMS lieutenants, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians, as well as traffic enforcement agents are among the 13 people who surrendered to the Department of Investigation on Tuesday morning.
They face grand larceny charges for allegedly filing false disability claims with Aflac insurance, CBS2 reported. The employees are accused of taking the insurance money along with their regular paychecks.
"In some instances not only were the employees falsely putting in for disability benefits, they were actually also billing the city for overtime work," DOI Commissioner Mark Peters told 1010 WINS. "In one instance, one of the forged doctor's signatures was for a doctor who had died the year before in a plane crash."
The alleged fraud was uncovered when a forged document was left on a copy machine, WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reported.
The thefts ranged from $3,000 to $100,000 per defendant, officials said.
The investigation is ongoing and more arrests are expected in the future.