Governor Hochul Announces $8.7 Million in Stolen Vehicles and Parts Recovered for New Yorkers

 

DMV Investigators Recovered 286 Vehicles and 157 Auto Parts in 2023

Comprehensive Auto-Theft Reduction Strategy is Working, with Motor Vehicle Thefts Down 50% in Rochester, 45% in Buffalo

Governor Kathy Hochul announced today that DMV investigators recovered 286 stolen vehicles valued at nearly $8.6 million and another $152,000 in stolen auto parts in 2023, as the State ramps up efforts to crack down on skyrocketing auto thefts. The recoveries are up 19 percent from the $7.3 million recovered in 2022, and a 67 percent increase from the $5.2 million recovered in 2021.

“Keeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority,” Governor Hochul said. “I launched the Comprehensive Auto-Theft Reduction Strategy to support our law enforcement and protect New Yorkers from theft, and these investments are paying off.”

In addition to the 286 vehicles recovered, DMV investigators recovered 157 auto parts, nearly twice the number of parts recovered in 2022.

Vehicles Recovered by Region

Region	Vehicles recovered
Capital Region	16
Finger Lakes	17
Mid-Hudson	25
New York City	142
Central NY	12
Long Island	42
Mohawk Valley	3
Western NY	29
Total	286

Recognizing the significant increase in vehicle thefts in New York State and across the country, Governor Hochul initiated a five-point plan called the Comprehensive Auto-Theft Reduction Strategy (CARS).

Highlights of the campaign include:

• $5 million for prevention programs for teens and young adults in the most impacted areas across the State.
• New York State Police ramped up enforcement in high-theft areas, and district attorneys will receive federal help in prosecuting the large number of cases.
• New York State launched a new website as part of a public awareness campaign in an effort to provide resources and education that will help New Yorkers take their own measures to prevent auto theft. It can be found at this link: www.governor.ny.gov/programs/taking-action-against-car-theft
• The Governor and New York State DMV sent a letter to each New Yorker who owns a Kia or Hyundai to inform them of the increase specific to their vehicle and advise them of tools available free of charge to help prevent their car form being stolen.
• The Governor sent a letter to each regional Auto Dealers Association alerting them to the campaign.

New Yorkers can report a stolen vehicle to State Police or local law enforcement, and information about stolen and recovered vehicles is available on the DMV website including what to do if your vehicle license plates are stolen.

Impact of CARS

State and local data demonstrated that that motor vehicle thefts was the only crime category that increased in 2023. In New York City, motor vehicle thefts were up 15 percent year over year and 191percent compared to the pre-pandemic baseline. Across the rest of New York, motor vehicle thefts increased 67 percent year over year in 2023 and 188 percent compared to the pre-pandemic baseline. Outside New York City, the most impacted areas of the State were Monroe and Erie counties. Almost two thirds of motor vehicle thefts occurred in these two counties. Roughly 50 percent of all motor vehicle thefts occurred in two cities, Rochester and Buffalo.

Since the implementation of CARS in September 2023, motor vehicle thefts are down 50 percent in Rochester and down 45 percent in Buffalo compared to the prior four-month period. State data indicates there have been similar reductions in Monroe and Erie counties. New York State will continue to monitor the progress of this initiative, and provide whatever resources are needed to deter and prosecute automotive theft.

Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson - Community Resources & Updates

 

Dear Neighbor,

Thank you for joining us for another week in review.

We held an information session last week in partnership with the NYC Department for the Aging and other organizations to share resources on wills, deeds, pre-end-of-life planning, health proxies, and more, to better equip our residents with the tools to make decisions for themselves and their families. We believe it is never too early to start planning for the future and to ensure your loved ones are taken care of.

In partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC, we are calling on our Bronx residents to enlist as mentors! Over 900 youth citywide apply to have a mentor every year and more than 38% of them hail from the Bronx. As a mentor, you are helping to transform a young person’s life and mentoring a future leader of our borough. You can click here for more information!

Lastly, a reminder that our Community Board application is live, and we are urging Bronxites to apply now to join their local community board!  We fulfilled a promise last year to create a digital application in English and Spanish to make the process easier and more accessible so our community boards can truly reflect the diversity of our borough. You will get to advocate for the needs of your community and hear directly from city agencies. Click here to apply!

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office at 718-590-3500 or email us at webmail@bronxbp.nyc.gov.

 

In partnership,

Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson

Grateful to support an amazing investment at the Bronx International High School. We believe in the importance of Work-Based Learning and CTE classes. Proud to have allocated one million dollars to support the creation of a wood shop classroom for our scholars. Congrats BIHS! 

Last week, I attended Mayor Adams’ State of the City address, where he outlined a bold vision for what our city can become over the next year. We have many important projects on our agenda this year, including: 

 Reimagining the Kingsbridge Armory 

Investments in our parks and open spaces

The Metro-North Penn Access Project 

The Hip-Hop Museum 

The Hunts Point Food Distribution Center 

and so much more. 

It is important for us to come together to ensure that these projects work for our communities.

Our LGBTQIA+ Task Force is back! Thank you to our members who joined us for our first meeting of the year. We look forward to continuing our work to advocate on behalf of our LGBTQIA+ community in the Bronx.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Fire Safety Education workshops in partnership with the FDNY and our community partners. We must continue to get this potentially life-saving information out to our residents and families. 

ICYMI

Thank you to everyone who watched our first Ask the BP of the year. Click here for the full segment.

UPCOMING EVENTS       

Serial Health Care Fraudster Sentenced for $234M Medicare Fraud Scheme

 

A California man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to conceal his involvement in operating a laboratory and billing Medicare approximately $234 million for various lab tests, including COVID-19 and respiratory pathogen panel tests, despite his decades-long exclusion from the Medicare program.

“Criminals who cheat federal health programs and profit at the expense of American taxpayers will be met with the full force of the Justice Department,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “As our country was battling the COVID-19 pandemic, this individual was fraudulently billing Medicare for hundreds of millions of dollars. Thanks to the work of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, he will now spend 10 years in federal prison for his crimes. We will continue to disrupt schemes that defraud the federal health programs the American people rely on, and we will hold accountable those who perpetrate those schemes.”

According to court documents, Imran Shams, 65, of Glendale, was convicted of Medicare and Medicaid fraud in separate 1990 and 2001 cases in New York and California, respectively. After each conviction, he was excluded from participation in Medicare and all federal health care programs, and advised by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) that he had to submit a written application to be considered for reinstatement in federal health care programs. Shams never sought reinstatement, yet he continued to operate health care clinics in New York that billed federal health care programs. In November 2017, Shams pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks and other charges in the Eastern District of New York related to his operation of these clinics.

By 2018, Shams was an owner, operator, and manager of Matias Clinical Laboratory, doing business as Health Care Providers Laboratory (HCPL), a Baldwin Park, California-based clinical testing laboratory that billed Medicare and other federal health care programs. In order to maintain HCPL’s status as a Medicare provider and enable it to receive payments from Medicare for its testing services, Shams and a co-conspirator fraudulently concealed Shams’ role in HCPL from Medicare, including failing to submit required enrollment documentation identifying Shams’ ownership, management position, and prior convictions; causing the submission of false documentation to Medicare identifying another person as HCPL’s sole owner and managing officer; submitting false documentation concerning HCPL’s ownership and management to the California Department of Public Health; and making false statements to the U.S. Probation Office and Pretrial Services Agency while Shams was on federal court supervision following his 2017 conviction. Between August 2018 and April 2022, when the grand jury returned the indictment in this case and Shams was arrested and ordered detained without bond, HCPL fraudulently billed Medicare approximately $234 million. Medicare paid HCPL approximately $31.7 million based on these fraudulent claims.

Shams pleaded guilty in the Central District of California on Jan. 24, 2023, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and concealment of his exclusion from Medicare.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, Shams was ordered to forfeit $31,761,286.21, including $4,513,106.30 in funds that the government previously seized from two bank accounts, as well as his interest in two residential properties and one business property in the Los Angeles area. Shams was also ordered to pay $31,761,286.21 in restitution.

“Shams engaged in a years-long scheme in which he billed American taxpayers nearly $234 million and lined his pockets with millions of dollars of funds intended for the health and welfare of patients,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “This case demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to rooting out fraud to help ensure critical healthcare funds go where they are needed most.”

“The integrity of the federal health care system rests, in part, on providers’ proper, lawful billing of Medicare and other HHS programs,” said Inspector General Christi A. Grimm of HHS-OIG. “Providers who violate federal health care law and defy measures intended to protect programs and patients from fraud will be held accountable. We remain steadfast and persistent in our efforts to investigate schemes targeting federal health care programs.”

The FBI Los Angeles Field Office and HHS-OIG investigated the case.

The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.