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Dozens charged in large Medicare scam
A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million.
Federal prosecutors claim it's the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history. Seventy-three people have been charged, most captured during raids this morning in New York City and Los Angeles.
The scheme's scope and sophistication "puts the traditional Mafia to shame," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. "They ran a veritable fraud franchise."
The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a "vor," prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, is in custody in Los Angeles.
Kazarian and other defendants were to appear in court later today on charges including racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft. Authorities claim the defendants had stolen the identities of doctors and set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states. The names were used to submit fake bills for care that was never given.
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