WEIGHT GURU GAUTAM GUPTA FLEECED $25 MILL.: FEDS

HE PROMISED people the sun and the stars. He ran five weight loss clinics in Illinois and made a killing by promising unhappy people that he could solve their problems forever. Now, Gautam Gupta, 57, is on the lam and wanted by the FBI.
Gupta is the focus of an international manhunt, charged with defrauding both state and private insurance companies out of an eye-watering $25 million, according to the FBI. According to the feds, Gupta and his unscrupulous staff submitted claims to Blue Cross / Blue Shield Insurance Company and Illinois Medicaid for unnecessary procedures – or procedures that never occurred. According to the FBI Gupta scammed some $25 million for false claims between 2001 and 2011. A
federal state initiative raided his clinics last January.
This is not Gupta’s first run-in with the law, though. Gupta had been in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which suspended his controlled substances license. (Now, why would they do that?) This time however, Gupta didn’t hang around to find out why. Since the conclusion of the police sting, Interpol has been brought in to help with the investigation – the FBI suspecting that Gupta may have fled the country. Gupta is of Indian descent, 5-foot-5, 160 pounds and has graying black hair that is sometimes worn in a ponytail (ooooh, yuck). MORE IN THE LA TIMES