Jamaica: Kingsley Chin(57), who is a Jamaica-born United States medical doctor and entrepreneur with his several partners, has been charged for conspiracy, money laundering and violating anti-kickback laws by the US authorities. Chin is the founder of the medical manufacturing company SpineFrontier and the head of LEDSspine.

The entrepreneur with the chief financial officer of his company and the other officials are accused of listing doctors as consultants and paying them to use the company’s devices. The doctors were reportedly paid within US$250 to US$1,000 per hour to use the products of the company.

According to the complaints filed, the medical operations in which Spine Frontier’s products were used were especially those funded by the government-backed Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and Veterans Health Administration. The criminal charges follow a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in the month of March 2020.

When the case was filed, at that time, the prosecutors accused Spine Frontier, Chin, the chief financial officer and many others of incentivising
operators to use the company’s products through illegal payments, ostensibly leading to more than $100 million in product sales.

According to the claims of the court documents, SpineFrontier and Chin have been accused of bribing the surgeons to use the company’s devices in exchange for pretext consulting fees between $32,000 and $978,000.

The acting US Attorney – Nathaniel R Mendell, in a statement while announcing the charges cited, “Kickback arrangements pollute federal health care programmes and take advantage of patients to earn money. Medical device manufactures must play by the rules, and we would keep pursuing those who fail to do so, despite how their corruption is disguised.”

SpineFrontier was established a decade ago after Chin completed his training at Harvard Medical School. The company is registered and based in Massachusetts, but the entrepreneur maintains his medical practice in Hollywood, Florida.