• Cops: Fugitive behind $1 million Medicare fraud nabbed in Canada

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    U.S. Postal Inspection Service

    Toronto police say they arrested Leonard Nwafor on an extradition warrant in the Canadian city on Wednesday.

    TORONTO -- An American fugitive convicted in a $1-million health-care fraud scheme in California was arrested Wednesday in Canada.

    Police said Leonard Nwafor was detained on an extradition warrant at his Toronto residence. The U.S. Marshals Service contacted Toronto authorities in August to seek their help in finding Nwafor and issued the extradition warrant last month.

    Nwafor was convicted on two counts related to health-care fraud for submitting false claims to Medicare through his Los Angeles-based company in 2008. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, most of the claims were for power wheelchairs costing up to $7,000 each that were not required by patients.


    Federal prosecutors said he made more than $1.1 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the U.S. government's health-care program for the elderly and disabled, and received more than $500,000 in payments.

    Nwafor fled California after the conviction. In 2010, he was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison and ordered to pay more than $500,000 in restitution and $25,000 in fines.

    He was also ordered to forfeit more than $500,000 in stolen funds to the U.S. government.

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    Authorities believe he had been living in Canada since he fled.

    Nwafor was also wanted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which had placed him among its 10 most-wanted fugitives.

    The agency charges that Nwafor opened fraudulent credit card accounts in Arizona and used the cards in Southern California.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

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  • Woman with amnesia at Toronto shelter identified as missing Delaware resident

    Newark (Del.) Police Department

    Linda Hegg, 56, had been missing since September.

    By James Eng, NBC News

    A mystery woman who walked into a downtown Toronto shelter three months ago not knowing who she was has been identified as an American who disappeared from her apartment in Delaware, police said Tuesday.


    Toronto police said DNA was used to positively identify the woman as Linda Hegg, 56, who was reported missing from Newark, Del.

    She has been returned to Delaware and is resting comfortably at a hospital in Newark, with family at her side, Toronto police said.

    It's still not known exactly when Hegg left her residence in Newark or what she did before she arrived at the shelter, Canadian Press reported.

    Hegg can’t answer those questions because she apparently has amnesia, said Toronto police Detective Roger Caracciolo, Canadian Press reported.

    Hegg asked the staff at her Delaware facility where she had been. "They told her, 'Well, you know, Linda, you were in Canada,' and she paused and she said, 'I like Canada. I'd like to visit there again,'" Caracciolo said, according to Canadian Press. "I don't think she knew where she was."

    Police determined that the mystery woman entered Canada via bus on Sept. 3 and walked into a downtown Toronto shelter on Sept. 5. The neatly dressed woman didn’t have any identification and couldn’t tell authorities anything about her history, except that her first name was Linda. All she had on her was a tote bag filled with scraps of paper, a bottle of water, a map of Toronto bus routes and a wallet with a Canadian $20 bill, The Star reported. 

    The Toronto Police Service began issuing news releases Canada-wide with Hegg’s photo, hoping that someone would recognize the 5-foot-4-inch, 130-pound woman with short blond hair and blue eyes.

    Unbeknownst to them, the Newark, Del., Police Department issued a press release Nov. 5 asking the public for help in locating Hegg, who the agency said suffers from an undisclosed medical condition and was missing from her unit in an apartment building run by the nonprofit National Alliance for Mental Illness.

    Hegg was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1996 and has had a "difficult" time since then, Caracciolo said, according to Canadian Press.

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    Newark police said a person in Canada contacted authorities Nov. 7 to report that the woman known there only as Linda resembled the woman reported missing in Delaware.

    “The subject noticed similarities between the photo released by NPD and that released by the Toronto Police Service.  NPD Detectives forwarded this information to the Toronto Police Service and assisted them in their investigation. Following an extensive investigation the Toronto Police Service used DNA to positively identify the subject as Linda Hegg,” Newark police said in a statement Tuesday.

    Toronto police added: “When officers spoke to Linda and told her that they knew who she was, she smiled and her eyes lit up. It was the first time in two months investigators had seen Linda smile.”

    Canadian social service workers took her back home on Friday – “just in time for Christmas,” Toronto police noted.

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