Epress.am News from Armenia
A number of US media covered the story of the group of Armenian-Americans who were arrested last week and involved in what is being billed as the largest Medicare scam in US history.
Dozens of arrests around the country Wednesday highlighted a criminal demographic rarely seen, but one that officials say is rooted in California and growing in reach and sophistication, reports Fox News.
In one instance of the fraud operation, a medical lab called Endeavor Diagnostics billed itself as a thriving medical laboratory that performed more than $1 million USD of work for Medicare patients.
When two FBI agents went to inspect it, they found an empty San Fernando Valley office with only a desk and a fax machine. There were no workers, no patients and no biological samples.
Behind the door of the facade were signs tying the operation to a sprawling network of phantom enterprises allegedly set up by Armenian mobsters to try to defraud Medicare of $163 million for services never provided.
Armenian organizations in the US are already asking people not to connect the criminal actions of this particular group with all Armenians living in the US.
For example, Zaven Kazazian, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Armenian-American Chamber of Commerce, said the Armenian-American group had “a different cultural background.” Citing their origins under Soviet rule in Armenia, he explained, “Everybody was out for themselves.”
Kazazian stressed that only a handful of Armenians are engaged in criminal enterprises and cautioned against making generalizations.
“We are embarrassed by it and we do not have any affiliation with them. They do not represent the true Armenian people,” he said. “It’s like saying all Italians are part of the Mafia. That’s just stupid.”