A total of 30 people in three cities were charged for their alleged roles in schemes to file more than $61 million in false Medicare claims, federal authorities said.

Indictments involving 25 people in Miami, four people in Detroit and one person in Brooklyn, N.Y., were unsealed Dec. 15 and announced as part of the continuing operations of the federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is expanding to Brooklyn, Tampa and Baton Rouge, authorities said. Search warrants were executed at businesses and homes in Coconut Creek, Fla., Miami and Brooklyn, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Attorney General’s Office.

The suspects are accused of various fraud crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the Medicare program, conspiracy to launder money, money laundering, criminal false claims, making false statements and receiving kickbacks.

According to charging documents, the defendants participated in schemes to submit claims to Medicare for products and services that were in fact medically unnecessary and oftentimes, never provided. In the Detroit cases, defendants allegedly took part in a scheme whereby they paid kickbacks to patients who received instructions from the clinic owners and patient recruiters to feign symptoms to justify expensive testing, including nerve conduction studies.

In Brooklyn, the two defendants are alleged to have billed Medicare for durable medical equipment, including expensive shoe inserts reserved for diabetes patients, when in fact much cheaper and over-the-counter shoe inserts were provided to beneficiaries who often did not need them.

In Miami, 15 individuals, including doctors and nurses, are charged in connection with fraudulent claims to Medicare for home health services. In another case in Miami, individuals are charged for their various roles in running a medical clinic that purported to provide injection and infusion treatments to HIV/AIDS patients and submitted fraudulent claims Medicare for such services, which were often medically unnecessary and/or never provided.

The joint DOJ-HHS Medicare Fraud Strike Force is a multi-agency team of federal, state and local investigators designed to combat Medicare fraud through the use of Medicare data analysis techniques and an increased focus on community policing. Strike Force teams currently operate in seven cities: Miami, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Brooklyn, Tampa and Baton Rouge.

Collectively, the physicians, company owners, executives and others charged in the indictments are accused of conspiring to submit approximately $61 million in false claims to the Medicare program, officials said.