Three Montgomery County dentists bilked Medicaid for millions, a federal indictment says

Federal authorities have accused the owners of a Montgomery County-based dental conglomerate of running their businesses like a criminal enterprise — bilking millions of dollars from government health care programs, illegally importing foreign workers and endangering patients by implanting unapproved medical devices in their mouths for profit.

Brothers Bhaskar Savani, 56, of Ambler; Arun Savani, 55, of Blue Bell; and Niranjan Savani, 51, of Ambler, broke at least a dozen laws in their efforts to generate more than $316 million in profits between 2009 and last year, prosecutors said in a sprawling 102-page indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Investigators also accused the siblings of laundering their illicit proceeds through hundreds of bank accounts and embezzling more than $4 million from nearly three dozen companies to cover personal expenses like a Hawaiian vacation home, college tuition for their children and utilities and tax payments on their homes.

The charges against the Savanis and nine codefendants — which include counts of racketeering conspiracy, visa and health care fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to distribute misbranded medical devices — are the result of a years-long investigation by a nearly a dozen state and federal agencies into the empire the Savanis oversaw from a nondescript office park in Fort Washington.

Attorneys for the brothers balked at the government’s accusations, calling them a distortion of the Savani brothers’ companies and careers…