2010 Medicaid fraud

The 2010 Medicaid fraud was a case of Medicaid fraud carried out by an Armenian-American organized crime group called the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization. The scam involved a crime syndicate which created 118 fake clinics in 25 states and used stolen medical license numbers of real doctors and matched them to legitimate Medicare patients whose names and billing information were also stolen. The group submitted more than $163 million in claims and received $35 million of that before they were caught. Prosecutors charged 73 individuals in several states with allegations of racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.

A scandal surfaced involving a case to defraud the Medicaid and other healthcare programs such as Medicare. With an estimated amount to be stolen totalling $163 million of which $35 million was already acquired by the criminals, it involved more than 50 ethnic Armenians living in the United States who were arrested on October 13, 2010. The operation was run by more than 400 FBI agents. In addition to FBI, IRS and local enforcement agencies in California, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Ohio were involved in the probe. The Justice Department has already indicted 73 individuals in New York and four other states. 44 defendants were indicted in New York, along with 10 in California, seven in New Mexico, six in Ohio and six in Georgia. According to the authorities, the Armenian-American organized crime group operated across 25 states.

According to the authorities, the individuals acted within an organized crime enterprise run by Armen Kazarian aka PZO a Soviet Union mobster part of the (Vor V zakone) who arrived in the US in 1996 and resided in Glendale, California. The other alleged ringleaders, Davit Mirzoyan, 34, also from Glendale and Robert Terdjanian, 35, from Brooklyn were also indicted. The authorities said most members of the organization were Armenian nationals or immigrants. The suspects have been allegedly laundering the stolen money. Prosecutors said that Kazarian travelled to New York to erase a $200,000 debt of one associate to another. When the second associate was unable to pay the fee of $100,000 for that service, his yacht was seized by Kazarian.

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