The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) announced that Bakali Mukasa, 44, formerly of Billerica, and his former company, JBM Health and Educational Services Inc. (JBM), were indicted by a Statewide Grand Jury on multiple charges related to a complex money laundering and transportation fraud scheme. The AGO alleges that JBM and Mukasa fraudulently billed MassHealth more than $770,000 for non-emergency transportation rides that were never provided, and then laundered the proceeds through various bank, real estate, and investment accounts before ultimately transferring the funds to Uganda, where Mukasa now resides.
According to the AGO, Mukasa and JBM are alleged to have claimed to provide non-emergency medical transportation for MassHealth members to attend methadone clinics to receive opioid addiction treatment. Between July 2019 and November 2020, investigators discovered that Mukasa and JBM had billed MassHealth for more than 16,907 rides that were not provided, as methadone treatment records revealed that MassHealth members had received “take home” methadone orders on the dates of the reported rides that did not require a physical visit to the treatment location. Investigators additionally uncovered nearly 100 rides billed for members who were deceased. MassHealth, through its transportation contractor, paid Mukasa and JBM more than $770,000 for these fraudulent rides. Investigators also learned that Mukasa used the proceeds he received from MassHealth as part of a complex money laundering scheme in which Mukasa moved more than $1 million into bank, real estate, and investment accounts in other individuals’ names, and then to accounts in Uganda, where he currently resides.