Tonmoy Sharma, a 61-year-old Indian-origin psychiatrist, is at the center of a massive $149 million healthcare fraud case in the United States. He was arrested on May 29, 2025, at Los Angeles International Airport following a federal indictment that charged him with eight counts of healthcare fraud. Sharma is accused of orchestrating a scheme through his company, Sovereign Health Group, by submitting fraudulent insurance claims totaling over $149 million. Authorities allege that he paid more than $21 million in illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for sending individuals to his network of addiction treatment and behavioral health facilities across Southern California and other states.
This is not Sharma’s first brush with the law. A Los Angeles jury previously found Sharma and Sovereign Health liable for racketeering and fraud in a civil case brought by the insurer Health Net. The court awarded nearly $45 million in damages, concluding that Sharma acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud” by billing for services that were either unnecessary or never provided. These findings paint a troubling picture of unethical business practices hidden behind a veneer of mental health services.
Before his activities in the U.S., Tonmoy Sharma had a controversial career in the United Kingdom. He served as a senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, but his medical license was revoked by the General Medical Council (GMC) in 2008. The GMC found him guilty of serious professional misconduct for conducting unethical drug trials on mentally ill patients without proper approvals, falsely claiming to hold a PhD, and misleading pharmaceutical companies and ethics committees.
Tonmoy Sharma’s long history of professional misconduct on both sides of the Atlantic raises critical questions about how such individuals can operate across international healthcare systems. His case serves as a stark reminder of the need for stricter oversight and accountability in mental health and addiction treatment sectors, especially when public funds and vulnerable patients are involved.