While the staff of CBS’s 60 Minutes are busy throwing temper tantrums about their main character status being revoked by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, CBS News has maintained a surprising but welcome commitment to covering the increased attention on fighting fraud, particularly in California and within the Medicare and Medicaid systems.
On Monday’s CBS Mornings, correspondent Adam Yamaguchi spotlighted one man convicted of having stolen over a quarter billion dollars to fund a life of luxury in Democrat Gavin Newsom’s California.
“Over the last several months, the CBS News investigative unit has followed the government crackdown on criminals who steal from taxpayers. That’s not nice. They commit fraud, targeting hospice, daycare, and food assistance programs,” co-host Gayle King began, offering a very brief recap.
While the newly-fired and remaining staff CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ continue to scream I AM SPARTACUS at editor-in-chief @BariWeiss, @CBSMornings kept up its ongoing commitment to spotlighting entitlement fraud, specifically in Gavin Newsom’s California.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 1, 2026
Correspondent Adam Yamaguchi… pic.twitter.com/O2u7CFKnZa
“So, this morning, we’re taking a look at how prosecutors are trying to figure out where is all that money going. Adam Yamaguchi takes us inside the case of one convicted fraudster,” she added.
Immediately, Yamaguchi sought to capture the viewers’ attention: “In the Southern California warehouse, a fresh haul of exotic cars paid for by defrauding American taxpayers. I’ve seen over a dozen Ferraris, Lamborghinis, a Bugatti, Lotus. L.A.’s top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli showed us around this U.S. Marshall’s warehouse.”
Yamaguchi later explained he also used fraudulent entitlement dough to buy “Kobe Bryant game-worn sneakers, baseball cards of Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle,” and seven homes, including an eight-bedroom, ten-bathroom mansion on a private road in Orange County.
He explained they were all previously “owned by Paul Randall, who pleaded guilty this year in one of the largest Medi-Cal fraud cases in California history,” which First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said amounted to “over $270 million worth of claims to the state of California” and a scheme that “should offend every American taxpayer[.]”
Essayli shared another stunning fact about Randall, which was he had “six prior convictions for fraudulent conduct” and was still able to steal hundreds of millions.
Asked by Yamaguchi why that’s been the case, Essayli plainly stated: “[T]here’s a breakdown in the criminal justice system if this guy was able to have six convictions and never did any real prison time...He was living like a king...That is why it is so important that the money never goes out in the first place.”
But beyond the eye-catching buys with taxpayer dough, Yamaguchi turned to fraud expert Haywood Talcove to share perhaps a more disturbing reality, which is that stolen taxpayer money is shipped overseas to transnational criminal organizations and thus nearly impossible to track (click “expand”):
YAMAGUCHI: In other cases, prosecutors believe some of the money not spent on luxury goods is sent overseas.
ESSAYLI: It’s much more difficult, if not impossible, for us to trace it or recover it.
YAMAGUCHI: Investigating government fraud is a priority for Haywood Talcove. He’s been warning officials about scams for two decades.
HAYWOOD TALCOVE: U.S. taxpayers lose a trillion dollars a year to these criminal groups.
YAMAGUCHI [TO TALCOVE]: Where’s it going?
TALCOVE: It goes to Russia, it goes to China, it goes to Nigeria, it goes to Romania.
YAMAGUCHI: By his estimate of that trillion dollars, roughly 70 percent ends up in the hands of transnational criminal gangs.
TALCOVE: The taxpayers are funding transnational criminals who are using this money for horrible things.
Yamaguchi saved for the end of the piece just how long Randall could face behind bars: “Now, Randall faces up to 30 years in prison when he’ll sentenced in August. He did not want to talk to us for the story.”
This marked at least the fourth deep-dive CBS’s Yamaguchi had aired on a flagship morning or evening newscast. Since part one on March 10, ABC and NBC have yet to join him in covering this disturbing trend inside Newsom’s state.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from June 1, click here.
