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Former drug rehab mogul Tonmoy Sharma was arrested Thursday, May 29, and charged with eight counts of insurance fraud connected to his San Clemente-based addiction empire, Sovereign Health Group.

The U.S. Department of Justice says Sharma – who in the 2010s was a regional leader in the drug and alcohol recovery industry – made $149 million worth of fraudulent insurance claims between 2014 and 2020. Prosecutors also say Sharma’s company ran up $29 million in unnecessary urinalysis tests that were conducted by Sovereign-owned labs, and that the company paid more than $21 million in illegal kickbacks to so-called “body brokers” who steered insured addicts into Sovereign-owned clinics.

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