Federal prosecutors are accusing seven individuals of conspiring to fraudulently charge more than $2 billion to a program set up to help people affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In an indictment unsealed Thursday, the Department of Justice alleged that the defendants submitted false claims on behalf of 40,000 individuals in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf states without their consent. The agency also said the defendants stole victims’ identities, using their names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other personal information to create phony legal clients for litigation against BP stemming from the spill.