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Abbott Laboratories and two of its units agreed to pay a total of 600 million in the first combined civil settlement and criminal conviction arising from Operation Headwaters, an undercover investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Office of the Inspector General for HHS, in which federal agents created a fictitious medical supplier known as Southern Medical Distributors. During its operation, various manufacturers, including Abbott's Ross Products Division, offered kickbacks to undercover agents to purchase the manufacturers' products and then advised them how to fraudulently bill the government for those items. In addition to a 382 mil...View all