FBI Hopes Manhunt Ends With “Got ‘im” Gupta

By JoshMogerman in News on Jun 19, 2011 7:30PM

The FBI is looking all over the place for a once highly visible “G” man. Gautam Gupta, whose weight loss clinic advertisements blanket the region’s airwaves, is on the run after feds accused him of defrauding insurance companies out of an unspecified sum. The Trib notes that Gupta collected over $25 million in claims from mid-2001 through the beginning of this year. In a criminal complaint, his clinics are accused of defrauding “Medicaid and a private insurer by repeatedly charging for hundreds of procedures that were medically unnecessary or never performed at all.”

Interpol has been brought into the international manhunt, which comes at the end of an undercover investigation in which law enforcement officers posed as patients at a number of Gupta’s clinics. Previously, he had run into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which suspended his controlled substances license.

Expect “America’s Most Wanted” to have a blast with this case, if it ever comes back... In the meantime, anyone with information about the doctor's whereabouts is asked to call the Chicago FBI at (312) 421-6700.