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California authorities have filed felony charges against 21 people, who they say orchestrated a hospice fraud scheme that cost the state $267m, the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced on Thursday.

The suspects allegedly bought personal identifying information for non-California residents from the dark web and used the stolen identities to enroll in Medi-Cal, a state program that gives low-income residents free or low-cost health care.

State officials accused the individuals of purchasing 14 hospice companies and billing Medi-Cal for nonexistent hospice services.

“The so-called patients were healthy, out of state and completely unaware that they had been enrolled in hospice care,” Bonta said in a Thursday press conference. “This was a brazen, calculated criminal scheme that exploited the Medi-Cal system.”

The 21 individuals are facing healthcare fraud, money laundering and identity theft charges, which carry possible prison sentences ranging from 10 to 16 years.

So far, $30m has been recovered and five suspects have been arrested in southern California, according to Bonta.

Government fraud has been a hot-button political issue, particularly among Republicans, who have sought to portray blue states as apathetic to the issue.

In December, Donald Trump cited a child welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota as part of his administration’s reasoning for aggressive immigration raids in the state. Several suspects in the alleged fraud scheme belonged to the state’s Somali diaspora.

Last week, in a social media post, Trump singled out other Democratic-led states including California, Illinois, New York and Maine as places where there is an “unprecedented theft of taxpayer money”, although he did not offer evidence to substantiate the claim.

“Raids have already started in L.A.,” Trump wrote. The day before his post, the California department of justice had announced the arrest of eight individuals in separate healthcare fraud cases.

At the Thursday press conference, Bonta addressed the ongoing discourse.

“While healthcare fraud might be President Trump’s shiny new political talking point. [The] California [department of justice] has been going after healthcare fraud since 1979 – for decades. Trump is late to the party,” he said.