The FBI has announced the capture of Emylee Thai, a 41-year-old Vietnamese-born businesswoman who had been on the agency’s list of most-wanted fraud suspects since 2022. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest on Monday, September 14, 2026, saying Thai had been hiding in Vietnam since 2023 under a false identity before international authorities helped track her down.
Thai owned and operated a clinical testing laboratory near Houston, Texas. According to federal prosecutors, she ran a large-scale billing scheme that defrauded Medicare, the U.S. government’s health insurance program for older adults and people with disabilities, out of an estimated $142 million (about the same in current dollars) between 2019 and 2022. Investigators say the scheme relied on ordering medically unnecessary genetic tests, allowing her to submit fraudulent claims for tens of thousands of patients without ever meeting them.
She was formally charged in July 2022 with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, and paying kickbacks tied to a federal health program. After fleeing, Thai reportedly used at least three aliases—Kelsey Tan, Thu Anh Thai, and Kimberly Le-Thai—to evade capture both inside and outside the United States.
Her arrest marks the sixth most-wanted fraud fugitive captured by the FBI in just three months, part of cases totaling more than $2 billion in alleged fraud. You can read the full original report at El Tiempo for more details on the case.
Source: ¿Quién es Emylee Thai, una de las estafadoras más buscadas capturada por el FBI en Vietnam? (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: nenadstojkovicart, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).