American businessman Ibrahim Hilmi, who is accused of devising a scheme to defraud over $3.7 billion from Medicare, the United States government-funded health insurance programme that supports elderly and disabled people, was arrested in Kyrenia and brought to America earlier this week, according to the justice department.

FBI Director Kash Patel said that Hilmi, 58, “is charged with one of the biggest Medicare scams in history” and has been brought to Miami, Florida, following a foreign transfer of custody. Hilmi fled the United States in May 2025.

In a statement, Patel credited the Miami branch of the FBI, the US justice department and “partners in Turkey” for apprehending Hilmi. He also thanked US ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, saying “this case could not have been accomplished without his tireless work.”

It is not clear what role officials in the occupied north of Cyprus played in the apprehension.

According to the justice department, Hilmi made an initial appearance in a Florida court on Monday.

Hilmi, who was a resident of Miami-Dade County, Florida, is charged with health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and two counts of money laundering in a grand jury indictment dated June 11, 2026.

The grand jury indictment alleges that Hilmi ran two fake healthcare companies, ABRH Care and Sunshine Senior Solutions, that operated as “shell companies that existed for the sole purpose of fraudulently billing Medicare” and other healthcare entities.

Starting in December 2024, Hilmi’s fraudulent companies are alleged to have submitted tens of thousands of claims, totalling billions of dollars, for reimbursements from insurers for durable medical equipment, including urinary catheters and wound dressings “that never existed.”

The indictment notes many of those who used the fraudulent companies to submit claims were “foreign actors” who stole the identities of legitimate medical providers.

According to the indictment, most of the claims submitted by the two fraudulent companies were not actually paid and “held in suspension,” which can occur when fraud is suspected, but around $5.7 million was deposited successfully into the companies’ bank accounts.

Millions of dollars were then transferred to shell companies located abroad, the indictment says.

It adds that the fraudulent companies “provided no services to customers and served no legitimate business purpose.”

Hilmi’s arrest is part of Operation Gold Rush, a federal effort to crack down on transnational organised crime networks that defraud Medicare.

US Vice President JD Vance, who is chair of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, also celebrated the arrest in a social media post.

“If you steal from the American people, there will be no safe harbour for your anywhere in the world,” Vance wrote.