IT was supposed to be the answer to addicts’ prayers – a government funded treatment programme that would get them clean and give them their lives back.
But in reality the rehab industry has become a twisted underworld where people struggling with addiction are being bought and sold in a multi-million dollar black market stretching across America.
GettyAddicts and vulnerable people are being targeted in rehab black market[/caption]
National GeographicMariana van Zeller has been investigating the scam[/caption]
Instagram/jasveen_sJasveen Sangha, aka Ketamine Queen, pleaded guilty to drug charges this week[/caption]
APMatthew Perry’s death shone a light on the shady underworld of drugs in LA[/caption]
In her latest investigation, journalist Mariana Van Zeller delved into how the business of getting clean got so dirty – uncovering a rehab underworld so rife with greed and exploitation that some patients are forced to run for their lives.
Desperate ‘body brokers‘ are paid to put ‘heads in beds’ at fake treatment centres, who then cash in on thousands in health insurance payments for each addict admitted.
But far from getting the treatment needed, they are given ‘incentives’ to stay – including free drugs.
Experts say the epicentre in California is known as the ‘rehab riviera’ – where addicts range from the homeless to Hollywood stars.
California was home to Matthew Perry, who spent years in and out of rehab centres before his death from a drug overdose in October 2023.
Yesterday, drug dealer Jasveen Sangha – known as the Ketamine Queen – pleaded guilty to five federal charges including the distribution of ketamine that resulted in the fatal overdose of the beloved Friends actor.
His death shone a spotlight on California’s predatory drug world, including the corporations making millions off the back of an addiction epidemic.
Mariana explains “people from every background and walk of life” are being sucked into the “sophisticated, elusive and dangerous” scam which is making fake “sober living centres” thousand per day.
It is estimated the state’s fraudulent rehab centres rake in $1bn a year.
Daphne has lived in over 40 sober living homes and hoped that the good weather and the treatment programmes in California would help her kick her fentanyl addiction.
National GeographicDaphne told Mariana that managers were often supplying the drugs[/caption]
National GeographicJack and Sandy lived at a sober living home in Los Angeles, California[/caption]
GettyAlcohol and drug use was openly allowed to encourage clients to stay[/caption]
Since the age of 23 she was covered by her mother’s private insurance policy which made her a prime target for fraudulent treatment plans.
She estimates her insurance was being billed at least $10,000 a day for services she claims she wasn’t receiving.
While Daphne was living in a luxury mansion, Mariana says: “Not only was there no supervision, alcohol and drug use were openly allowed as an incentive for clients to stay.
“She says the house managers were mostly just long time clients and often the ones supplying the drugs.”
Clients who want to escape the fraudulent centres even have to rely on activists to help them make their escape.
One couple, Jack and Sandy, had hit rock bottom with their meth addictions and couldn’t afford help.
So when a recruiter offered free plane tickets to California and treatment they saw a lifeline.
Unlike Daphne, Jack and Sandy were on a cheap insurance plan that the recruiters had signed them up for and were given very little of anything – except the one thing they were trying to run away from.
Jack says: “We relapsed because it was put in our face. Meth.”
Mariana says: “Instead of being enticed to stay, they say they were often threatened with being kicked out and then moved to an even worse location.”
The couple claimed they had received no treatment. Sandy says: “It is human trafficking.”
Missing addicts
While California has a high number of the shady rehab centres, the problem is rife across the US.
In Phoenix, Arizona, addicts are being targeted by scammers who claim they will help them get clean – but only want the money from their health insurance.
Tim and Den’s son Christopher has been missing for two months. His future was looking bright until high school when he started smoking weed and drinking.
But this led to him getting hooked on harder drugs. Mum Den says: “It just got worse and worse and worse. His dad had to put his foot down.”
This is when a friend took Chris to a sober-living home – touted as a safe, supervised place to live. And according to Tim and Den, it was all being paid for by Medicaid – the US programme providing healthcare to low-income families. The home would also provide transport to treatment in outside facilities
“He was doing good at first. But then we started to notice he was doing drugs again, and he would be real sick,” says Den.
“They were pretty much left on their own, they were on the streets and were just told be back by 10pm. He wasn’t been taken care of.”
Mariana explains: “Chris was shuffled between multiple locations in under a year. His parents say his addiction spiralled from meth to fentanyl and then they lost contact.
“His parents reached out to several of the sober homes but they got no answers.”
But Chris isn’t the only one. Reva Stewart is a Navajo activist who estimates there are hundreds of missing people like him.
She had started to create case files for missing people – and soon realised she had uncovered evidence of a booming new scam.
Mariana says: “Most share a chilling detail. Their last known location was a sober living home.”
Body brokers
Reva first got involved when her cousin, who struggled with alcohol abuse, was picked up from a reservation in New Mexico by two men offering help.
On the way they kept offering her alcohol and she passed out. When she woke up she was across state lines at a sober living home in Phoenix.
Reva says: “The first thing they asked her was, we need your information, your social security. It just clicked. Now I knew what they were doing, they were getting people down into these homes, getting their identification all their information. It’s a scam. This is what is going on.”
Mariana also met a man who was living on the streets and struggling with his own addiction when a sober living home hired him to become a recruiter – known in the industry as a ‘body broker’.
Mariana says: “His job was to find the heads to fill the beds.”
National GeographicDeb Dineyazke and Tim Arviso’s son Christopher went missing[/caption]
FacebookReva Stewart is an activist trying to expose this black market[/caption]
GettyThe whole of the South Western US has proved a fertile hunting ground for so-called “body brokers”[/caption]
“I would recruit whoever was lonely, didn’t have no place to go, people in despair, people struggling with their addiction,” he says.
At the time he was desperate for cash. His boss would pay him up to $200 for each person he brought in – and he would often offer recruits a cash kickback to go to the homes.
He was told to bring back clients – but only native Americans. From there they would get them onto the American Indian Health Plan.
Mariana explains: “It was established to address long-standing healthcare inequities for native Americans. During Covid the rules were relaxed so that anyone could sign up for a government funded healthcare plan with just one phone call.
“That meant opportunists could lure people into sober homes with the promise of getting help and then bill the State of Arizona for hundreds of thousands of dollars in addiction treatments that were never actually provided. It was easy money.”
Mariana’s contact says his bosses had luxury lifestyles, wads of cash and million dollar homes. But he soon realised the full extent of the horrific scam when they started to ignore deaths inside the facilities.
After two years of recruiting – when he saw at least seven deaths – he was unable to bear the guilt and quit.
Opportunists could lure people into sober homes with the promise of getting help and then bill the State of Arizona for hundreds of thousands of dollars in addiction treatments that were never actually provided.
Mariana
He says: “Back in the day us Native Americans had a bounty on our heads, our scalps were worth something back then and to this day Native Americans have money signs targeted on our backs. We are worth something to them.”
Evil trade
By Josh Saunders
STALKING their prey like vampires, the ‘body brokers’ are a nefarious bunch focused on one thing – making money from human misery.
The most prolific can allegedly make up to $7,000-a-week with ease, all from capitalising on those with drug addictions – especially celebrities.
It’s a terrifying world that I first became aware of when Kelly Osbourne exposed them in the documentary Matthew Perry & The Secret Celebrity Drug Ring.
She claimed ‘body brokers’ would sit outside AA meetings “looking for weak and vulnerable people that they encourage to go and relapse” to capitalise from their insurance policies.
The recovering addict daughter of later rocker Ozzy said: “I swear on everything that it’s true and it’s heartbreaking.”
I was gobsmacked hearing her words about this vastly under-reported crime – made illegal in 2018 – but after pulling at the threads, my discoveries chilled me to the core.
Body brokers make their money by taking a commission from moving addicts between rehabs, paid by the centres themselves, which is taken through healthcare insurance payouts.
I was told these crooks not only wait outside AA meetings but actually infiltrate them, as well as Narcotics Anonymous and rehabs.
They pretend to have addictions to gain access, then peddle drugs or offer addicts substances and cash to move to a treatment centre that has them on retainer.
Ordinary people are the most common target of this horrific trade that I was told can see people trafficked between states in America.
But the “ultimate prize” is a celebrity, because their insurance will never run out and they often pay out of their own pocket to keep it private.
“Body brokers are everywhere…and they have flooded social media,” a victim of the trade told me.
With celebrities, these vampires manipulate them to believe they “care” and have their “best intentions at heart” while profiting from their addictions.
Due to the stigma around drugs, they are in the ultimate position of power and some “threaten to leak photos or information” unless they go to ‘their’ rehab.
I’m told: “Others expose them to a substance and leak it to the press so that a narrative builds up that the celebrity needs help.
“Then they offer rehabs they are getting paid by as an option, promising privacy and protection.”
Since body brokering has been made illegal under the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018, there has been a crackdown, thankfully, and some people were jailed.
Yet the trade continues. And without further reporting like The Sun’s, which pressures the government and police into action it will continue for years to come.
Blatant fraud
In 2023, the governors office announced they were starting to take action against a growing list of alleged fraudulent providers, suspending over 100 facilities.
But despite the crackdown, some sober homes were still active.
Mariana and her team visited one of the larger ones – formerly a hotel.
Resident Nicholas told her there were around 100 people staying at the facility run by NewFound Hope – one of the companies that had its licence suspended amid allegations of Medicaid fraud in 2023.
Owner Denis Artiles signed an agreement with the state to shut down their operations for two years. But Mariana found them to be very much in business.
National GeographicReva’ s cousin was picked up by two people who kept offering her alcohol[/caption]
GettyPhoenix, AZ, has been hit hard by the fentanyl epidemic[/caption]
GettyAn addict in New Mexico with a cardboard sign begging for help[/caption]
Mariana managed to track down his sister-in-law Christina Bly who previously did all the billing for the company.
She claimed the company had double-billed or billed for people who weren’t there.
“Absolutely I would call it a fraud,” she said.
Mariana says: “Christina tells me it is common for some sober homes to entice native Americans with the promise of free housing. But then once inside they are taken to bogus out-patient treatment programmes which fail to provide the help they so desperately need. While the scammers bill it all to Medicaid.”
The house managers were mostly just long time clients and often the ones supplying the drugs
Mariana
“We would bill $2,500 per day, five days a week, per person,” says Christina.
She produced a spreadsheet that showed in one week they billed over $859,000 for one week – more than $3m a month.
Denis Artiles denied any wrongdoing, but shut down the operation at the hotel.
Mariana says: “In addition to the exploitation of vulnerable people, as of 2024 this kind of fraud has cost the state of Arizona and its taxpayers close to $3bn.”
But law enforcement officers say the incentives for those behind the fraudulent sober homes – millions of dollars of profits – far outweigh any potential punishment.
The legal system hasn’t caught up with the lucrative healthcare loophole.
Mariana says: “Our healthcare system has somehow allowed these scams to flourish and all of us are footing the bill.”
Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller airs Mondays on National Geographic at 10pm. The Great American Rehab Scam episode is available now.
National GeographicMariana found the scammers were often billing to Medicaid while failing to provide the treatment[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
