Amtrak fell victim to a group of 119 employees who carried out a mammoth $12 million fraud scheme. Shockingly, more than half of these employees are still employed by the company, according to an internal investigation.

These employees defrauded Amtrak’s health plan through a kickback operation involving corrupt doctors. The scam involved the employees receiving bribes from these doctors, who then submitted fraudulent claims. In some instances, the employees even resorted to strong-arm tactics reminiscent of organized crime by extorting money from medical providers in exchange for their participation in the scheme.

The Office of the Inspector General’s report, released on Tuesday, highlighted the alarming scope of employee involvement in the fraudulent scheme. Inspector General Kevin H. Winters expressed concern over not just the ethical breaches but also the normalization of criminal behavior within the company’s workforce, particularly in the Northeast region.

Some of the allegedly dirty workers — mostly located in the New York to DC region — even handed over their kids’ insurance information for the con that ran from 2019 to 2022, according to the OIG’s office.

Yet some 61 of the scammers still work at the largely taxpayer-funded railroad, the OIG’s office said.

An Amtrak spokesperson said the company is taking “swift action” to deal with all the fraudsters, adding that officials have now increased oversight and employee education to keep schemes like this from happening again.

About a dozen Amtrak employees are facing criminal charges. Seven of them have already pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing, 28 other employees retired or resigned in disgrace because of the investigation and another 30 left the company “for other reasons,” according to the OIG.

The train company’s watchdog began investigating the jaw-dropping scheme after an agent noticed unusual billing patterns, according to the OIG’s office.

Agents then discovered three New York health care providers with “questionable billings” and a high number of Amtrak employees as patients.

An undercover agent posed as an Amtrak employee in June 2021 and met with Punson Figueroa — an acupuncturist from Long Island City who told the agent her name was “Susie,” according to the OIG.

At Figueroa’s office, she had the undercover agent sign about 30 undated papers for acupuncture and physical therapy treatments, the report said. Figueroa allegedly submitted the signed papers as fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s health care provider over the next few weeks.

The undercover agent went back to Figueroa’s office the following month, and Figueroa handed them an envelope stuffed with $1,000 in cash, according to the OIG.

Two of the scams’ ringleaders — former employee Devon Burt of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and Hallum Gelzer, of East Orange, New Jersey — were responsible for recruiting Amtrak employees to participate, the probe found.

The pair also admitted to investigators they threatened to injure a health care provider unless Gelzer was paid his cut of thousands of dollars, according to the OIG.

Both pleaded guilty in June 2023 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to communicate extortionate threats. As part of a plea agreement, Burt agreed to pay back nearly $1 million. Gelzer agreed to pay back about $1.66 million, according to the OIG.

Figueroa pleaded guilty to fraud last fall and was sentenced to three years of supervised release. She was ordered to pay more than $9 million in restitution, according to the OIG.

A doctor from New Jersey, Muhammed Mirza, was ordered to serve 26 months in prison for his role in the scheme. Mirza was also ordered to pay back $1.37 million when he was convicted in May 2024, according to the OIG.

A podiatrist, Michael DeNicola from New York, pled guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, distribution of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a firearm. He is awaiting sentencing, according to the OIG.

Medical biller Regina Choi from Woodside, who worked for Figueroa during the con, admitted to submitting fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s health care plan and paying kickbacks to Amtrak employees. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud but is awaiting sentencing, the office said.

The six other employees who pleaded guilty to health care fraud conspiracy charges were Rodolfo Rivera of Clayton, Delaware; Anthony Saloka of Elizabeth, New Jersey; Michael Toal of Hazlet, New Jersey; David McBrien of Levittown, Pennsylvania; Damany Walker of Irvington, New Jersey; and David Lonergan of Rockaway Park, New York, according to the OIG.