The Federal Bureau Investigation seal is seen at FBI headquarters in Washington, U.S. June 14, 2018. / REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

An Indian-origin former chief financial officer of a US spinal implant firm has been sentenced to four months in prison for conspiring to pay surgeons over  $540,000 in sham consulting fees to use the company’s products in surgeries.

Aditya Humad, 41, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was sentenced on Aug. 6, 2026, by US District Court Judge Indira Talwani. He was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release and pay a $9,500 fine.

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Humad, the former CFO of SpineFrontier Inc., pleaded guilty in May 2026 to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. He was originally charged in September 2021 along with SpineFrontier founder, president and CEO Dr. Kingsley R. Chin.

Humad conspired to pay and direct the payment of over $540,000 in bribes to surgeons in the form of sham consulting fees for work they did not perform. Humad conspired to bribe surgeons to use SpineFrontier’s products, and in turn, SpineFrontier received millions of dollars in revenue from surgeries the surgeons performed, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

“This sentence is the culmination of years of dogged pursuit of SpineFrontier, its executives, Aditya Humad and Kingsley Chin, and multiple bribe-taking doctors. Aditya Humad now stands convicted and sentenced for conspiracy to pay bribes to physicians to induce them to use products in complicated spine surgeries,” said United States Attorney Leah B. Foley.

“In criminal and civil proceedings, we have recovered more than $4 million from these executives, their companies and the physicians who took their bribes. Let these resolutions serve as notice that no matter how long it takes, and how sophisticated the scheme, we will crack down on health care fraud offenses.”

This corporate scheme sought to corruptly influence surgeons by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to induce the use of SpineFrontier’s medical devices in surgeries, said Roberto Coviello, Special Agent in Charge at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG).

Humad’s actions undermined critical safeguards designed to protect patients and the integrity of taxpayer funded health care programs, Coviello said.

Aditya Humad, the Chief Financial Officer of Spine Frontier, Inc., a spinal implant company, formerly based in Malden, MA, has been sentenced to federal prison & was ordered to pay a $9,500 fine for his role in a kickback scheme to bribe surgeons to use company products in… pic.twitter.com/RuPKRyLpOF

— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) August 10, 2026

As the Chief Financial Officer of SpineFrontier, Inc., Humad conspired to bribe surgeons to use his company’s products – and paid them more than a half million dollars in sham consulting fees for work they did not perform – in an effort to boost the company’s bottom line, said Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division.

Kickback schemes like this not only violate federal law, but they erode the public’s trust in our health care system. That’s why the FBI and our partners will continue to ensure individuals who put their company’s profits ahead of patient care are brought to justice, he said.

“This sentencing sends a clear message that the VA Office of Inspector General will work diligently to ensure that individuals who conspire to pay kickbacks to influence medical decisions are held accountable,” said Special Agent in Charge Christopher Algieri of the VA OIG’s Northeast Field Office. “The VA OIG thanks the U.S. Attorney’s Office and federal law enforcement partners for their collaboration and exceptional work in pursuing justice in this case.”

Humad conspired with SpineFrontier to enter into contracts with surgeons, agreeing to pay the surgeons between $250 and $1,000 per hour for purported consulting for SpineFrontier. In reality, however, Humad directed SpineFrontier to pay the surgeons for using SpineFrontier’s products.

Although the surgeon-consulting program was purportedly directed at gathering technical feedback about SpineFrontier’s products, Humad used the bribes they paid pursuant to that program to induce surgeons to use SpineFrontier’s products in surgeries that were paid for by federal health care programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Health Administration. Additionally, the surgeons frequently spent only a small fraction of their reported time, if any, performing actual consulting.

Humad previously agreed to pay a fine pursuant to a civil settlement agreement, including a fixed amount totalling more than $150,000 (including interest) and potential additional contingency payments based upon his annual income.

In May 2025, Chin pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He was subsequently sentenced in August 2025 by Judge Talwani to one year of supervised release with the first six months to be served in home confinement. Chin was also ordered to pay a fine of $9,500 in addition to $40,000 he personally agreed to pay as part of a related civil settlement and $855,000 that his wholly-owned company agreed to pay as part of the same settlement.

Discover more at New India Abroad.