Man Suspected of Fraud Attempts To Flee U.S. for Cuba on Jet Ski

A Cuban man charged for more than $4 million of Medicare fraud attempted to flee the United States to Cuba on a jet ski, according to a report on Tuesday.

Ernesto Cruz Graveran of Hialeah, Florida, was ordered by a Miami federal judge to be detained pending trial on June 13, according to the Associated Press. The 54-year-old was apprehended by the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers last week.

Between February and April this year, Cruz Graveran's company, Xiko Enterprises Inc., submitted an estimated $4.2 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare. This was for medical equipment that Medicare beneficiaries never requested and Xiko never provided, according to a criminal complaint cited in the report.

Cruz Graveran's plan to travel to Havana was discovered by investigators. He was approached several days before his flight and cooperated with criminal investigators during an interview, AP said.

His passport was taken by authorities, only for him to attempt to flee the U.S. on a jet ski. Cruz Graveran was apprehended in the company of a person known to law enforcement as a migrant smuggler.

The jet ski the pair were riding on was outfitted with a special fuel cell made for long-distance trips. It also had extra food and water bottles on board, the report said.

Newsweek contacted the Coast Guard for comment.

The case comes at a time when many Americans are struggling with health debt. In April, President Joe Biden proposed a series of measures to address medical debt.

The Biden administration's proposals will reduce the role medical debt plays in determining whether people can access credit, making it easier for those with medical debt to acquire home or business loans. They will also make it easier to forgive the medical debt of more than half a million low-income veterans.

The proposals propose to inform consumers of their rights and hold medical providers and debt collectors accountable for harmful practices. The U.S. is unique among developed countries in its levels of personal medical debt.

The high mortality rate in the U.S. from the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the poor health conditions of many Americans, leaving them especially vulnerable to the virus. While political leaders have reiterated their commitment to tackling the high cost of health care, social media is awash with stories about unaffordable medical bills.

One in three U.S. adults has medical debt, and medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the country. This is despite the fact that 90 percent of the U.S. population has some form of medical insurance, according to a March report by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 Survey of Income and Program Participation found Americans owe at least $195 billion in medical debt.

While other wealthy countries are more likely to have universal health care that covers them in the event of illness, some 26 million Americans are still uninsured. Millions more have insurance plans with high deductibles and copayments for preventive care.