How Mesa police helped take down couple accused of stealing $12.5M in Medicaid fraud

Mesa police’s organized crime unit was critical to a monthslong Internal Revenue Service investigation that led to the arrest of a New River couple who were charged with defrauding the state's Medicaid system and laundering the proceeds.

The racketeering case of Thvoughn Lynden Curry, 31, and his wife, Alexis Curry, 32, marks the first federal health care fraud investigation Mesa has completed, according to a case summary.

In an internal email to Mesa City Council members, Chief Ken Cost wrote he was proud of the team's work and said, “We will continue to hold these criminals accountable with more investigations.”

The Curry probe is just one of several Medicaid fraud cases the two departments are investigating.

Mesa’s organized crime unit has three open and active “AHCCSS-style investigations,” according to a spokesperson from the department. The IRS’s Phoenix field office has 13 cases related to AHCCCS fraud. Details of those cases remain closely guarded by investigators.

The Currys are part of a widespread scandal involving the massive defrauding of taxpayers and the exploitation of vulnerable, mostly Native American people, many of them kidnapped from across the West. State authorities have pegged the cost to taxpayers at around $2 billion and counting.

The scam, authorities say, involved stashing people who needed to beat drug or alcohol addictions in motels, homes or multi-family complexes. Those responsible are accused of billing the state's medical system for services without providing addiction therapy.

The state has suspended payment to nearly 300 licensed providers.

Mesa is not the only community dealing with unlicensed sober living homes. In the West Valley, local police departments and code enforcement officers are cracking down on scores of known homes, especially in Suprise, Glendale, Avondale, Buckeye and Goodyear.

Those communities are ringing the alarm to the rapid increase of unlicensed homes in the cities. Goodyear police said it has five licensed group homes although officials are aware of 156.

In January 2023, the IRS task force received information from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System about alleged “nefarious activities” of the Currys that launched the roughly nine-month-long investigation.

The Currys are accused of bilking the state’s health care system of more than $12.5 million between February 2021 to March 2023.

The husband-and-wife duo were arrested outside of a casino in California after failing to self-surrender on Nov. 2. They were arrested on charges related to wire fraud and money laundering and are accused of submitting fraudulent claims to AHCCCS.

The couple appeared in a federal court in Los Angeles and was later released. The duo pled not guilty.

What went into the Mesa and IRS joint investigation?

Mesa police Det. Thomas Steffa, a member of an IRS task force, teamed up with Mesa Police Department's complex financial investigations unit to review more than 15 personal and business accounts held by the Currys.

Mesa police issued 25 subpoenas and used police cameras to surveil target locations. Police also reviewed paperwork including titles, business documents, and AHCCCS records, the case summary states.

Detectives interviewed the Currys' former employees as well as several neighbors who lived near unlicensed sober living homes associated with 1 Family Clinic LLC.

The couple purchased eight properties, including their home in New River, five homes in Mesa and two homes in Phoenix, worth a total of $5.36 million, according to investigators. Court records show the Currys also amassed $1.6 million in cash, $1.2 million in cars, more than half a million in designer clothes and nearly $370,000 in jewelry.

The homes in Mesa were spread throughout the eastern and northern parts of the city that are nestled into typical Arizona neighborhoods with beige stucco-painted homes.

Mesa police were called a total of 24 times to the five homes there over the roughly three-year period. Calls ranged from welfare checks, family fights, and in one instance an assault with a deadly weapon.

Federal prosecutors filed papers in U.S. District Court in Arizona to seize the Currys' assets, which they allege were purchased with “criminally derived funds.”

Two of the homes in Mesa were sold just days after a federal judge issued arrest warrants. The proceeds of those sales were transferred to the federal government to await the release of the money by the court at the end of the case, Zach Stoebe, a spokesperson from the U.S. Attorney’s office wrote in an email to The Republic.

The value of the homes ranges between $499,000 to $900,000, according to the case summary.

Neither the IRS nor the Mesa Police Department provided further details of the investigation citing pending legal action in the courts.

The Currys' enterprise

In July 2020 the Currys filed a tax ID form with the IRS to set up their business, 1 Family Clinic, LCC. The same day they registered the business with the Arizona Corporation Commission.

Four months later, the Arizona Department of Health Services issued the Currys a license to operate an outpatient counseling facility.

Over the next three years, according to a federal affidavit in court, 1 Family Clinic submitted claims for reimbursement to AHCCCS totaling more than $12.5 million for bogus services to about 185 individuals, including 163 who were insured through the American Indian Health Program.

Court documents state that at least three former employees of the Currys told FBI agents they witnessed employees signing people up for AHCCCS claiming the person was Native American when they were not.

Prosecutors also alleged the couple overbilled beyond the hours the clinic operated. Former employees also said house managers of three homes in Mesa “looked the other way so individuals could bring drugs and alcohol,” according to the affidavit.

A federal search warrant application stated that Currys had not filed personal tax returns between 2020 and 2022. No income or wages other than payments reported by AHCCS were reported for the Currys from 2018 to 2022.

The pair were investigated under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a key law enforcement tool used to break up criminal conspiracies.

The Currys were released on bond and ordered to turn in their passports by the court. The court also ordered them to not own or operate any business in health care. The Currys are due in court on July 2 in Phoenix.

Reporter Maritza Dominguez covers Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek and can be reached at maritza.dominguez@arizonarepublic.com or 480-271-0646. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @maritzacdom.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mesa organized crime team key to IRS unraveling AHCCCS fraud case