They Bragged About Meeting Kash Patel. The FBI Was Already Watching. The Savani Brothers Now Face 835 Years in Prison.

They Built a $32 Million Criminal Empire. They Posed With the FBI Director. A Jury Just Ended It All.

On March 9, 2026, a federal jury in Philadelphia returned its verdict in one of the most sprawling, methodically documented fraud prosecutions involving Indian-origin defendants in American legal history.

Brothers Bhaskar and Arun Savani were convicted of conspiracy to conduct a racketeering enterprise, conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, money laundering conspiracy, concealment and transactional money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Treasury, and wire fraud. Windward

The US Department of Justice found the Savani brothers guilty on 42 counts. Bloomberg

Bhaskar Savani, 60, of Ambler, Pennsylvania faces a statutory maximum sentence of 420 years in prison. Arun Savani, 58, of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania faces up to 415 years. Their sentencing hearings are scheduled for July 8 and July 9, 2026 respectively. Associate Aleksandra "Ola" Radomiak, 48, of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, was also convicted and faces up to 40 years. Wikipedia

Eight hundred and thirty-five combined years of maximum exposure. A decade of fraud. And — in perhaps the most extraordinary subplot of any federal prosecution this year — a social media trail of the brothers posing proudly with FBI Director Kash Patel, celebrating his appointment, while federal investigators were already building the case that would destroy them.

The Savani Group: What It Was and How It Worked

To understand the verdict, you need to understand the enterprise. The Savani Group was not a small operation of corner-cutting. It was a sophisticated, multi-state criminal network — deliberately constructed, systematically operated, and relentlessly expanded over a decade.

The Savani Group was a multistate network of 50 dental practices located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Iowa, and South Carolina. Through their criminal enterprise, Bhaskar and Arun Savani substantially enriched themselves over the course of a decade. NPR

Bhaskar was a dentist by training and controlled the numerous dental practices of the Savani Group. Arun generally controlled the finances and real property holdings of the Savani Group. As proven at trial, Bhaskar and Arun Savani built a complex criminal enterprise they dubbed "the Savani Group" that amassed tens of millions of dollars through outright fraud at every turn. Windward

The division of labour was clinical: one brother ran the clinical side — the dental practices, the patient billing, the medical credentials. The other ran the money — the finances, the property, the laundering network. Together they constructed a machine with five distinct operating fraud schemes, each feeding the others.

The Five Fraud Schemes: How Each One Worked

Scheme 1: The Medicaid Machine — $32 Million

This was the financial core of the operation and its most damaging element.

The Savani Group defrauded Medicaid of more than $32 million through nominee-owned dental practices used to bill Medicaid after the Savani Group's Medicaid contracts were terminated. After some of their dental practices were terminated from Medicaid insurance contracts, the brothers used nominee owners to obtain new Medicaid contracts and continued billing the programme. Wionews

Investigators said the scheme defrauded US Medicaid of more than $30 million through the scheme. Officials also found evidence of proxy billing using another dentist's identification number. According to prosecutors, the dentist whose number was used was not even in the United States at that time. Bloomberg

When a government terminates your Medicaid contract for fraud — the Savani response was not to reform. It was to set up front companies with nominee owners, get new contracts under those names, and keep billing. The same fraud, through a different legal shell. Repeat as necessary.

Scheme 2: H-1B Visa Exploitation — Indian Workers as Revenue Sources

A visa fraud scheme to file false H-1B visa applications and petitions with the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to exploit a workforce comprised of foreign nationals, mostly from India, who were dependent on the Savani Group and forced to kickback wages and fees to the Savani Group. NBC News

This scheme had a particular cruelty to it. The victims were Indian workers — dentists, support staff, practice employees — brought to America on H-1B visas sponsored by the Savani Group. Their visa status made them entirely dependent on their employer for their legal right to remain in the country. The Savanis exploited that dependence systematically: workers were forced to return portions of their wages as kickbacks, knowing that refusal could mean visa cancellation and deportation. The American Dream, weaponised as a financial extraction mechanism.

Scheme 3: Tax Evasion — College Fees and Pool Maintenance

Through the scheme, the Savani brothers and their companies failed to pay taxes on approximately $1.6 million of unreported personal income and $1.1 million of their employees' unreported income. They failed to pay personal and payroll taxes and fraudulently expensed through their businesses, among other personal expenses, college tuition payments, personal property taxes, and pool and lawn maintenance costs for their personal homes. NBC News

The specificity of this — college tuition and swimming pool maintenance billed as business expenses — reveals the contempt the Savanis had for the system they were defrauding. This was not desperate survival fraud. This was comfortable, entitled theft by people who had already extracted tens of millions and were now billing their personal lifestyle costs to the federal government on top of it.

Scheme 4: The Money Laundering Web

The Savani brothers laundered fraud proceeds through a complex web of financial transactions, wire fraud, and mail fraud. Windward Arun Savani was convicted of twelve counts of money laundering Wikipedia — a charge count that reflects the systematic, repeated nature of the laundering operation rather than a single transaction.

The money moved through a network of companies, accounts, and real property holdings — the same architecture that makes financial crime prosecutions so labour-intensive. Investigators had to trace each dollar from its fraudulent origin through multiple layers of corporate structure before arriving at its final destination in the Savanis' personal wealth.

Scheme 5: Unapproved Dental Implants in Patients Without Their Knowledge

This is the scheme that most distinguishes the Savani prosecution from ordinary financial fraud — because this one caused direct physical harm to patients who trusted a dentist with their bodies.

A mail fraud scheme and Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act conspiracy to place prototype dental implants, labelled "Not For Human Use," not cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in human patients without their knowledge or consent. NBC News

Read that again slowly. Dental implants labelled "Not For Human Use." Placed in actual human patients. Without telling them. Without FDA clearance. Without consent.

This is why Bhaskar Savani — in addition to all the financial charges — was convicted of a separate FDCA conspiracy count that his brother was not charged with. He was the dentist. He was in the room. He made the choice to put unapproved medical devices into patients' bodies for reasons that investigators have not fully disclosed publicly — but which are likely connected to cost-cutting or experimental use of prototype equipment obtained outside normal supply chains.

The patients who received these implants deserve to know. Whether they have been notified is a question the DOJ's post-conviction process must address.

The Detail That Defines This Case: Bragging About Kash Patel

In a prosecution full of extraordinary details, one stands above the rest for its sheer audacity.

What's really wild is that they bragged on social media about hanging out with Kash Patel, the FBI Director, and even celebrated his new job — while the FBI was already investigating them. The Washington Post

The Savani brothers shared pictures with Kash Patel on social media. Windward

The timeline: The Savani brothers were charged in January 2023. The FBI investigation that produced those charges began years earlier. And somewhere in the middle of that investigation — while federal agents were building a 42-count indictment against them — the brothers were apparently cultivating relationships with prominent figures in American conservative political circles, posting photographs on social media as evidence of their connections and respectability.

Whether those connections were genuine, performative, or a deliberate strategy to create the appearance of political protection is not established by the verdict. What is established is that no connection — real or photographed — protected them from the jury that deliberated and convicted them on all 42 counts.

The FBI director whose photograph they shared was running the same agency that investigated them. That irony, in its way, is the entire American legal system in miniature: connections matter, but evidence matters more.

The Third Brother: A Threat That Escalated Everything

The Savani prosecution has a third character who did not make it to the March 9 verdict — and whose conduct during the pre-trial period was remarkable even by the standards of this case.

In February 2025, the pair's other brother, Dr. Niranjan Savani, also a licensed dentist and accused of taking part in the Savani Group scheme, was detained pending trial after threatening to shoot a prosecutor and her family. A pretrial services officer notified management, claiming that Niranjan Savani said he wanted to shoot Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Bonney and her family after the prosecution objected to his travelling to India due to the death of his father-in-law. NPR

A federal defendant, facing a racketeering indictment, threatening to shoot the prosecutor handling his case. Niranjan Savani's case is proceeding separately — but his detention pending trial and the threat against AUSA Bonney adds a layer of menace to a prosecution that was already documenting a decade of calculated criminality.

AUSA Lesley Bonney, who prosecuted the case against Bhaskar and Arun Savani while receiving death threats from their brother, deserves specific recognition for the courage that required.

What the DOJ Said: The Statement That Left Nothing Unsaid

The Department of Justice's response to the verdict was unusually pointed — and the language used by senior officials signals how seriously the federal government views this prosecution.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said: "This significant prosecution exemplifies the commitment of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners to protect taxpayer-funded programs from fraudsters and corrupt healthcare professionals who seek their own personal enrichment by bilking government programs and then laundering their ill-gotten gains. The Criminal Division, and all of our partners including the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, will continue using every law enforcement tool available to identify, disrupt and dismantle organised fraud and those who corruptly manipulate the worker visa and Medicaid programs. Fraudsters and money launderers like Bhaskar and Arun Savani and their associates who do so will pay a heavy price." Windward

Acting Deputy Inspector General Scott J. Lampert of HHS-OIG added: "The Savani Enterprise exploited vulnerable patients, manipulated government programs, and siphoned taxpayer dollars for their own benefit. HHS-OIG, alongside our federal and state law enforcement partners, remains unwavering in our commitment to protect the integrity of Medicaid and to defend the public's trust in our healthcare system." Wionews

What Happens Next: July Sentencing and What It Means

The convictions on March 9 are verdicts, not sentences. The actual prison terms will be determined by US District Court Judge at sentencing hearings scheduled for July 8 (Bhaskar) and July 9 (Arun), 2026.

Prosecutors said Bhaskar Savani faces a statutory maximum sentence of 420 years in prison, while Arun Savani faces up to 415 years. Radomiak faces a potential sentence of up to 40 years. Wikipedia

In American federal sentencing, statutory maximums are rarely imposed. The actual sentence will be calculated using the US Sentencing Guidelines — a formula that takes into account the financial loss amount, the number of victims, the defendant's criminal history, and whether they accept responsibility. For a $32 million fraud with thousands of Medicaid victims and H-1B workers, and with additional counts for obstructing justice and placing unapproved medical devices in patients, the Guidelines calculation will produce a very significant sentence — likely measured in decades rather than years, even if not centuries.

The brothers' decision to go to trial — rather than plea bargain — means they receive no credit for acceptance of responsibility. Whatever the Guidelines produce will be applied in full.

The Wider Significance: H-1B Exploitation and Indian Diaspora Accountability

This case carries significance beyond the courtroom. It arrives at a moment of intense national debate in the United States about the H-1B visa programme — its value, its abuse, and the power dynamics it creates between foreign workers and sponsoring employers.

The Savani Group's visa fraud scheme specifically targeted a workforce comprised of foreign nationals, mostly from India, who were dependent on the Savani Group and forced to kickback wages and fees to the Savani Group. NBC News

The victims of the H-1B scheme were Indian workers — people who came to America seeking opportunity and found instead a system that exploited their legal vulnerability for profit. The Savani brothers were not victimising strangers from a different community. They were extracting money from people from their own background, using the tools of immigration law as instruments of financial control.

That dimension of the case is important for the Indian-American community to reckon with honestly — not as a source of collective shame, but as a reminder that exploitation does not always cross ethnic or national lines, and that accountability applies regardless of shared heritage.

The Bottom Line

Bhaskar Savani, 60. Arun Savani, 58. Fifty dental practices across four states. $32 million stolen from Medicaid. Indian workers forced to kick back wages on pain of visa cancellation. Unapproved implants placed in patients without their knowledge. Tax evasion billed as pool maintenance. A third brother who threatened to shoot the prosecutor. And social media photographs with the FBI director — taken while the FBI was building the case.

By their fraud, they obtained more than $32 million from Medicaid through nominee-owned dental practices — through outright fraud at every turn. Windward

A federal jury deliberated and returned guilty verdicts on all 42 counts. The sentencing judge will decide in July how many of those 835 combined maximum years become reality.

Whatever that number is, it will be a number earned — count by count, victim by victim, dollar by dollar — across a decade of calculated, contemptuous, and comprehensive fraud against the American public, its healthcare system, its immigration programmes, and the Indian workers who trusted the Savani Group with their futures.