The feds gave a “time out” to 11 people busted yesterday in an $18 million day-care scam, authorities said.
The suspects charged in Operation Pay Care include seven city employees who allegedly took bribes of cash and jewelry to help a ring of Russian child-care workers defraud a subsidy program for the poor.
The scheme involved more than 35 day-care centers in Brooklyn and Staten Island run by a group that called itself the Congregation, authorities said.
Six of the centers have since been shut down for health and safety violations that included open bottles of booze stashed in a refrigerator right next to children’s lunches.
Mastermind Liudmila Umarov and three co-defendants paid off workers at various city agencies, the Manhattan US attorney said.
The city workers allegedly issued permits for substandard centers, steered children into the Congregation’s programs and expedited payments from the $405 million-a-year voucher program.
The alleged scam was uncovered last month by the city’s Department of Investigation after a Department of Health worker reported that defendant Lyudmila Grushko tried to bribe her to increase the number of kids allowed at her Sesame Street LMN Day Care in Brooklyn.