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FBI Busts Armenian Crime Syndicate For Defrauding Medicare Of $163 M

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  • FBI Busts Armenian Crime Syndicate For Defrauding Medicare Of $163 M

    FBI BUSTS ARMENIAN CRIME SYNDICATE FOR DEFRAUDING MEDICARE OF $163 MILLION

    Asbarez
    Thursday, October 14th, 2010
    NEW YORK-LOS ANGELES

    Federal law enforcement authorities have announced charges against
    dozens of members of a vast Armenia criminal syndicate that used
    phantom health care clinics and stolen identities to fraud Medicare
    out of $163 million, the US Department of Justice said Wednesday in
    a statement.

    Prosecutors in New York and Los Angeles charged 73 people. The
    investigation, dubbed Diagnosis Dollars, resulted in the arrests
    of 52 people across the U.S. in what authorities described as "the
    largest Medicare fraud scheme ever perpetrated by a single criminal
    enterprise."

    Those arrested are being charged with credit card fraud, identity
    theft, federal racketeering, immigration fraud, and even distribution
    of contraband cigarettes and stolen Viagra.

    Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning
    in New York City and Los Angeles, but there were also arrests in New
    Mexico, Georgia and Ohio. In Los Angeles, authorities arrested more
    than two dozen Glendale-area residents early Wednesday for their
    alleged roles in the nationwide scheme to defraud Medicare.

    The lead prosecutor in the case, U.S. attorney for the Southern
    District of New York, Preet Bharara, said the "Mirzoyan-Terdjanian"
    organization, named after its two alleged leaders, 35-year-old
    Davit Mirzoyan and 36-year-old Robert Terdjanian, employed threats,
    intimidation, and violence and operated in a classical mafia style.

    The scheme's scope and sophistication "puts the traditional Mafia
    to shame," Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. "They ran a
    veritable fraud franchise."

    The syndicate is accused of submitting the fraudulent claims to
    Medicare from at least 118 phantom medical clinics in 25 states.

    Investigators say the organization stole the identities of doctors
    and filed applications to bill Medicare in their names.

    Mirzoyan-Terdjanian is also alleged to have used stolen identities of
    approximately 2,900 Medicare patients treated at a New York hospital.

    Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people
    to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was "completely
    notional," Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI's New York office, said
    in a statement.

    "There were no real medical clinics behind the fraudulent billings,
    just stolen doctors' identities. There were no colluding patients
    signing in at clinics for unneeded treatments, just stolen patient
    identities. The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage. But
    the money was real, while it lasted," Fedarcyk said in the statement.

    "The reach of this organization stretches clear across the country and
    well beyond our shores. And so in terms of profitability, geographic
    scope, and sheer ambition this emerging international organized
    crime syndicate would be the envy of any traditional mafia family,"
    Bharara said.

    The indictment says most members of the organization were Armenian
    nationals or immigrants who maintained substantial ties to Armenia. In
    addition to regularly traveling there, they had criminal connections,
    transferred criminal proceeds to the country, and bought real estate
    and businesses with money from their illegal profits.

    Kazarian, who immigrated to the United States in 1996, is identified
    in the indictment as "vor v zakone," or a "thief in the law-code," a
    powerful figure in the criminal underworld of the former Soviet Union.

    Bharara said it was the first time a vor, which is "the rough
    equivalent of a traditional godfather," had been charged in a U.S.

    racketeering case.

    The indictment also accused Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn
    and others of hatching other schemes involving stolen credit cards,
    untaxed cigarettes and counterfeit Viagra. It also alleged that during
    a meeting last year at a Brighton Beach restaurant, Terdjanian pulled
    a knife on someone who owed him money "and threatened to disembowel
    the individual if the debt was not paid."

    A judge jailed Terdjanian without bail on Wednesday at a brief
    hearing. Afterward, his attorney said his client denies the charges.

    Kazarian and Mirzoyan were scheduled to appear in court Wednesday in
    Los Angeles.

    Authorities began the New York-based investigation after the
    information of more than 2,900 Medicare patients at the Orange Regional
    Medical Center in upstate New York, including Social Security numbers
    and dates of birth, were reported stolen.

    Some of the phony paperwork was a giveaway, investigators said. It
    showed eye doctors doing bladder tests; ear, nose and throat
    specialists performing pregnancy ultrasounds; obstetricians testing
    for skin allergies; and dermatologists billing for heart exams.

    If convicted, the defendants face various sentences up to life
    imprisonment and up to $500,000 fine.




    From: A. Papazian
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