The crime was perfect only in its ghoulish symbolism: the perpetrators allegedly drew blood from poor people, paying them as little as 50 cents a vial, then falsely claimed the samples came from Medicaid patients and billed the Government for millions of dollars' worth of bogus laboratory tests. The alleged Medicaid rip-off, for which a physician and nine others were indicted in New York City, was only the most lurid example in a chain gang of new and continuing fraud cases that shuffled across front pages last week. In virtually every one of half a dozen scams, members of the public had been fleeced by names they thought they could trust, ranging from the Hertz rental- car company to New York City's senior Congressman, Mario Biaggi.
The current dragnet for white-collar criminals culminates a roaring, greedy decade that created not only legitimate prosperity but also boundless motivation for stealing. Fraud was never so tempting or remorseless, thanks to the proliferation of electronic money and fast, faceless financial transactions. In the past the primary safeguard against such theft had been trust, but in the go-go '80s that ethical obstacle blew away like an old cobweb. Now, finally, the epidemic of cheating may be cresting, since greed is going out of style in some quarters, and the spectacle of once upright citizens slouching off to jail may provide a deterrent.
Even so, last week's developments suggested that much more fraud may emerge in the near future as the misdeeds of the gilded '80s are uncovered and brought to justice. What is encouraging, however, is the way in which many law-enforcement agencies are conducting the cleanup with a newfound toughness and technical skill. Among the developments:
-- Hertz, the largest U.S. auto-rental agency, pleaded guilty in federal court to overcharging customers and their insurance companies for repairs to cars that the motorists had damaged in collisions. The company agreed to pay a fine of $6.9 million and to make full restitution to some 100,000 victims, who overpaid at least $13.7 million from 1978 through mid-1985. According to the Government's probe, which was first disclosed in January, Hertz paid wholesale prices for auto repairs but charged customers full retail price without advising them of the markup. In other cases, Hertz prepared phony repair appraisals and charged customers for work that was never done. Hertz says it has fired 20 employees who carried out the scam, including the company's accident-control manager.
-- Investigators in New York City uncovered a "blood-trafficking" ring in which suspects bought samples from drug addicts and other poor people and then sold the blood to medical labs that bilked the state's Medicaid program of at least $15 million for useless tests. At 14 of the 41 labs examined, investigators found sufficient improprieties to bar the operations immediately from the Medicaid program.