A Los Angeles outreach worker has shed light on the disturbing tactics some fraudsters use to lure homeless individuals into detox centers in California. This comes after federal charges were leveled against David Young, 71, and his son Nathan Young, 39, who are implicated in a $1.6 billion scheme related to drug rehabilitation.
Federal prosecutors have accused the Youngs of employing “body brokers” to recruit over 6,000 addicts, many of whom traveled from outside the state, to enter California rehab facilities as part of a deceptive insurance plot.
Lang Martinez, a homeless advocate based in Los Angeles, noted that the kind of exploitation the Youngs are accused of isn’t unique to their case. He described a grim reality on Skid Row, where similar scams are disturbingly common, and shared some of the underhanded methods aimed at maximizing profit.
“Los Angeles is definitely a hot spot for this sort of thing,” said Martinez, reflecting on his past as a homeless individual on Skid Row until he got sober in 2018. “First, they find someone who’s struggling with addiction. Then, they’ll give you a little bit of cash.”
After that initial engagement, Martinez explained, body brokers often obtain identification from their victims and secure insurance on their behalf. This allows the brokers to place these individuals in rehab centers with the costs covered by insurance, often just a week later.
“They have insiders within the top insurance companies,” Martinez indicated. “They will grease the right palms and backdate the victim’s insurance,” allowing them to bill for services that weren’t actually provided.
The line used by these body brokers typically sounds enticing: “I got you a spot, man. I’m gonna get you on a plane to this treatment place,” Martinez recounted.
He pointed out that this isn’t just a local issue; it’s happening all over the country. Once these individuals arrive, they can find that instead of real help, they encounter misleading setups, such as group therapy sessions disguised as Zoom meetings with numerous participants but no actual treatment—essentially, just scams.
Even more troubling, Martinez noted that these brokers often lure sober addicts out of rehabilitation with cash and drugs, encouraging them to relapse before returning them to another fraudulent rehab for an additional fee.
“A lot of these individuals end up dead,” he lamented. “They relapse, I put you in another program, and that’s how the brokering operates.”
Martinez estimates that scores of homeless individuals on Skid Row might have fallen victim to such schemes. “When you turn human suffering into a business, you’ve lost your humanity,” he added, stressing that what’s occurring through body brokering isn’t recovery, but a form of exploitation.
The Youngs’ case has gained notoriety due to their alleged partnership with other body brokers, including a couple from Greenville, Texas, who reportedly preyed on vulnerable homeless addicts, cycling them through their rehab facilities.
According to the Justice Department, over a span of six years, the defendants collected upwards of $210 million in the scheme, which the Assistant Attorney General described as “the largest sober home fraud scheme the Department has ever prosecuted.”
Both the Youngs and the Phipps were apprehended in a broad anti-healthcare fraud initiative in California announced in Los Angeles.
They allegedly instructed brokers like the Phipps to travel across multiple states to find homeless addicts, arrange their insurance, and enroll them in their rehabs located around Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area.
Credit card records indicated that victims were flown in from places like Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Birmingham, Alabama.
These brokers have been accused of offering kickbacks such as cash, drugs, or complimentary accommodations in attractive locations to entice addicts to their facilities. In some instances, victims were even coached to exaggerate their substance use histories during intake assessments.
Once within the Youngs’ operation, patients moved among different rehab homes, manipulated into staying longer to increase profit potential. They were reportedly kept drugged, cut off from family communication, and physically prevented from leaving.
The First Assistant U.S. Attorney voiced concern over the distressing implications of this scheme, especially given California’s homelessness crisis. “These body brokers brought vulnerable people here with false promises of treatment, worsening California’s drug-addicted homelessness crisis,” he said. “We will hold accountable those who turn addiction and human suffering into a business.”
