MIAMI – Two South Florida women have been arrested in an alleged scheme to defraud the Miami-Dade County school system's insurance plan.
Violeta Otero, 55, and Ida Mercado Rico, 52, face felony charges of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud.
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Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Miami-Dade school police announced the arrests Thursday.
Authorities said Otero, who owns the Sunshine Wellness Clinic, filed fraudulent insurance forms for a number of Miami-Dade County school district patients for medical treatments and injections that were never performed.
Rico is alleged to have recruited many of the patients to come to the clinic, paying them in cash.
"Insurance fraud is an attack on every individual on every person who pays an insurance premium," Rundle said. "Insurance fraud scams that steal from our public school system take dollars intended to make our schools function, dollars that can educate our children, and put those dollars into the pockets of thieves. I applaud this partnership which allows my prosecutors and the Miami-Dade schools police to effectively shut down such swindlers."
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