On October 1, 2026, National Fraud Enforcement Division Chief, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, issued a memorandum highlighting the Department of Justice’s commitment to combating fraud. Directive 26-12: Corporate Enforcement in the Fight Against Fraud. Available here. As part of its “aggressive” approach, McDonald directed the Fraud Division leaders to work with law enforcement partners to “design and implement policies and programs that appropriately incentivize whistleblowers to bring forward credible information pertaining to fraud.
On August 4, 2026, the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division announced the initiation of a new Strike Force to aggressively combat Medicaid fraud in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This expansion of the Division’s Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force, in conjunction with the expansion of the West Coast Strike Force, displays the government’s commitment to investigating and prosecuting healthcare fraud.
On July 14, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that its Trade Fraud Task Force (TFTF) had exceeded $1 billion in recoveries and charged losses, a remarkable figure considering that the TFTF was established just under a year prior in August 2025. The TFTF attributed its output to a mixture of “rigorous criminal prosecution and civil enforcement under the False Claims Act (FCA),” confirming that whistleblowers continue to turbocharge enforcement in the customs arena.
On April 30, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched the West Coast Health Care Fraud Strike Force to target schemes in Arizona, Nevada, and the Northern District of California. The initiative reflects a coordinated effort to expand western enforcement resources and to advance data-driven approaches against fraud involving taxpayer-funded programs.
Judge Kenney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in Jonathan Meyer v ADS Clinics, LLC, No. 21-cv-5303, on February 10, 2026, rejected a most recent attempt to gut the qui tam provisions from the federal False Claims Act (FCA) based on the Appointments, Vesting and Take Care Clauses of Article II of the United States Constitution.
All of us were treated recently to the latest statistics from the Department of Justice for 2025. By all accounts it was a record year for both the Department of Justice and relators, over $6.8 billion in total recoveries, including some impressive resolutions obtained in non-intervened cases.
Takeaway: Laboratory fraud continues to be pervasive in the healthcare industry.
Every sector of the healthcare industry relies upon laboratory testing. Lab tests are used to diagnose virtually all illnesses and conditions ranging from the common flu to cancer.
In a move to fortify the Pennsylvania treasury’s defenses against fraud, Governor Josh Shapiro utilized his 2026-2027 Budget Address earlier today to call for the creation of a Pennsylvania state False Claims Act (“FCA”). Federal and state FCAs allow the government to seek enhanced damages against fraudsters and offer whistleblowers awards for exposing fraud against the government.
Takeaway: Wound care fraud is now one of the key enforcement priorities of the Department of Justice. An aging population, combined with Medicare’s pricing policies, nurtured an opportunity for Amniotic Allograft Fraud to explode.
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Takeaway: The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) continues to take customs fraud seriously. With the Department of Justice’s newly launched Trade Fraud Task Force, the government has signaled a zero-tolerance policy for customs evasion—particularly regarding Chinese goods. DOJ’s recent $54.
