US federal authorities open criminal investigation into Steward Health Care

Federal authorities in Boston, USA have opened a criminal investigation into Steward Health Care, according to reports.

CBS News reported the company, which has recently filed for bankruptcy in the US, is being investigated over various allegations including fraud and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The company is at the centre of a criminal corruption probe in Malta, with a number of former and current politicians, as well as civil servants charged in court. Steward had taken over the original hospitals’ privatisation concession granted to Vitals Global Healthcare, now ruled to have been fraudulent.

In the US, the company has been a focus of a investigation carried out by CBS News, who have documented how private equity and other investor groups have siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from community hospitals with devastating public health consequences.

Records reviewed by CBS News showed Steward hospitals around the country left a trail of unpaid bills, at times risking a shortage of potentially life-saving supplies.

The Department of Health in Massachusetts opened an investigation after a woman died after giving birth at a Steward hospital in Boston last October. A complaint made by healthcare workers at the facility, obtained by CBS News, indicates a medical device that might have saved her life had been repossessed by the manufacturer weeks earlier because Steward owed about $2.5 million in unpaid bills.

On Thursday, a court has decreed that there is sufficient evidence to indict Shaukat Ali Chaudry and his wife Asia Parveen Shaukat. The 73-year-old Pakistani businessman is accused of money laundering, trading in influence, misappropriation, promotion and active participation in a criminal organisation and corruption.

MaltaToday had reported that Ali, along with former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, were central to the multi-million fraudulent hospitals concession. Investigators believed that Shaukat Ali’s family was rewarded with huge consultancy fees when Steward was to take over Vitals as concessionaires of the hospital – as much as €480,000.

The payments to Shaukat Ali were made two weeks before Steward Healthcare International – the international arm that took over the concession – signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to take over the hospitals concession.

READ ALSO: Scicluna wanted additional payments to Steward to be blocked – Cabinet memo