Poul Thorsen, a Danish researcher who was one of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s top ten most wanted fugitives since 2011, pleaded guilty today to operating a wire fraud scheme that stole CDC grant money awarded for autism research overseas. From 2000 to 2009, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, awarded over $11 million in grants to two Danish governmental agencies to study the relationship between autism and exposure to vaccines, between cerebral palsy and infection during pregnancy, and between childhood development and fetal alcohol exposure. In 2002, Thorsen ... became the principal investigator responsible for administering the money. Thorsen systematically stole the CDC grant money by submitting fraudulent documents to the Danish government, to Aarhus University, and to Odense University Hospital, where scientists performed research under the grant. From February 2004 through June 2008, Thorsen submitted over a dozen fraudulent invoices, containing the forged signature of a CDC laboratory section chief, for reimbursement of expenses Thorsen claimed were incurred in connection with the CDC grant. Based on the fraudulent invoices, Aarhus University transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to ... personal accounts held by Thorsen.