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73 members of Armenian-American criminal syndicate arrested for financial fraud

14 October 2010 08:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A vast network of Armenian gangsters led by â€œthief in the lawâ€ Armen Kazarian was rendered harmless in the United States. According to APA, a group of immigrants from former USSR used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program’s history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday. Armenian crime boss Armen Kazarian, 46 was arrested and the court refused to release him on bail.
Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.
The defendants in the New York case also had stolen the identities of doctors and set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states, authorities said. The names were used to submit fake bills for care that was never given. "The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage." Kazarian, 46, of Glendale, Calif., and two alleged ringleaders â€” Davit Mirzoyan, 34, also of Glendale, and Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn â€” were named in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan.
Most of the defendants were to appear in court later Wednesday on charges including racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft. "This Armenian group allegedly employed a raft of rackets, extortion, credit-card fraud, identity theft, immigration fraud, and even distribution of contraband cigarettes and stolen Viagra," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
The scheme’s scope and sophistication "puts the traditional Mafia to shame," said Bharara 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, was in custody in Los Angeles.
Bharara said it was the first time a vor â€” "the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather" â€” had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.

Most of the defendants "were Armenian nationals or immigrants and many maintained substantial ties to Armenia" and criminals there, the indictment said. Couriers would often carry cash proceeds from the fraud back to Armenia, it added.