IBNS-CMEDIA: A British-Indian businessman and his former wife are facing extradition to the United States over allegations that they defrauded healthcare programmes of millions of dollars by supplying cancer drugs that had not been approved by a federal agency, media reports said.
The businessman, Sukhi Ghuman, 48, and his former wife, Kiranjit Ghuman, are also wanted in the US to face separate drug-smuggling charges, according to reports.
Prosecutors representing the US government allege that the pair misled Medicare, the federal health insurance programme, by claiming to supply approved medicines while allegedly administering cheaper alternatives and pocketing the difference, the BBC reported.
The extradition hearing is currently underway at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London.
Sukhi Ghuman strongly denied any wrongdoing in an interview with the BBC, saying he was trying to help patients who could not afford cancer treatment.
He also denied making any money from the alleged scheme.
A warrant for the pair’s arrest was issued by the US District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego in October 2023, the BBC reported.
Peter Caldwell KC, representing the US government, told the court that an investigation covering the period from September 2019 to April 2023 had allegedly uncovered a scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars from Medicare and other US health insurance plans.
According to the prosecution, the pair allegedly sourced cheaper, unapproved chemotherapy and other drugs from overseas and administered them to cancer patients at oncology clinics they controlled in California and Arizona.
Investigators further alleged that some of the medicines supplied to patients were past their expiry dates.
