TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida vascular surgeon defrauded the government and health insurers of more than $26 million to possibly fund his political ambitions in his native Ghana, federal authorities said.

Earlier this month, a federal grand jury released a 58-count indictment accusing Dr. Moses deGraft-Johnson of falsely billing insurers such as Medicare and Medicaid for services he did not actually provide.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigators said deGraft-Johnson performed more than 3,600 atherectomies, a minimally invasive procedure that removes potentially dangerous plaque in the arteries, over a five-year period. Authorities said the doctor's Tallahassee, Florida, practice also made claims for angioplasties that were never performed.

In court documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida, prosecutors argued for the doctor to remain in custody, arguing he posed a flight risk because his “ultimate long-term professional goal” is to one day become president of Ghana.

U.S. Judge Charles A. Stampelos agreed and ordered deGraft-Johnson to be remanded in custody pending trial on March 23.

The government said it was “unable to assess the feasibility of such an undertaking” but saw evidence that he “worked diligently to build an empire in another country using the proceeds of fraud in the United States.”

Investigators said they examined the doctor's bank accounts and discovered at least $1.8 million in international wire transfers to companies and partners in Ghana, a country of 29 million people on the west coast of Africa.

According to authorities, one of the doctor's relatives was the country's vice president in the 1980s.

“He's a wonderful doctor, and I will defend him vigorously,” said William Bubsey, the attorney representing deGraft-Johnson during detention hearings Friday. Bubsey said it's still unclear who will represent deGraft-Johnson because the doctor does not have access to his assets.

Bubsey denied the government's allegations and said that any money deGraft-Johnson may have sent abroad was intended to help Ghana's impoverished population and was not for his own enrichment.

Also charged along with deGraft-Johnson was Kimberly Austin, who prosecutors said served as office manager of the Heart and Vascular Institute of Northern Florida, which is owned and operated by deGraft-Johnson.

Together, they poached patients from a local hospital whose medical records deGraft-Johnson had access to, the government said.

“He used his access to the daily hospital census to recruit patients for his fraud scheme by instructing his staff to make unsolicited calls to patients from the hospital so he could use their presence to fraudulently bill health care programs,” prosecutors said in court documents.

In some cases, prosecutors said, deGraft-Johnson was not even in the country when some of the procedures were to be performed.