Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced the indictment of 23, including nine doctors and eight companies, who were involved in a massive Medicaid fraud scheme.

Nearly $7 million was illegally billed to Medicaid during the two-year undercover investigation.

Under the scheme, recruiters allegedly lured low-income and homeless people to fake clinics throughout New York City, promising free sneakers, shoes and boots. Thompson estimates that thousands of people underwent unnecessary medical testing and were given orthotic insoles and ankle braces with the shoes, which would later be billed to Medicaid.

Thompson said the main recruiter, Bernard Rorie of Brooklyn, would “literally scream out, ‘Free sneakers! Free shoes! Does anyone want a free pair of sneakers?’” while standing outside of homeless shelters, welfare offices and soup kitchens. He says Rorie would then check a potential patient’s Medicaid card and drive the individual in a van to one of the clinics.

The investigation began after a Brooklyn resident reported her concerns to the DA’s Action Center in July 2012. She had been taken to a clinic and told she had to take a knee brace if she wanted the free sneakers.

Forty-three-year-old Eric Vainer, the alleged leader of the fraud scheme, owned multiple durable medical equipment companies and kept close track of the number of “patients.” Vainer was arrested this morning in Florida, where he will remain in custody until his arraignment in Brooklyn. His mother, Paulina Vainer, was her son’s alleged “second-in-command” and closely assisted him in managing what Thompson calls a “Medicaid mill.”

Thompson believes this scheme has been going on for longer than two years, and that abuse of the Medicaid system is not the worst part. “At the heart of this health care fraud scheme was the exploitation of poor people,” he said, “the most vulnerable people in our society.”