WASHINGTON — Last week 73 defendants, including members of an Armenian-American organized crime ring, were charged with various health care crimes involving more than $163 million in fraudulent billing (but not for DME) in what was called "the largest Medicare fraud scheme ever perpetrated by a single criminal enterprise and charged by the Department of Justice."
According to the DOJ, the international organized crime enterprise known as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian perpetrated a nationwide scam that "fraudulently billed Medicare for more than $100 million of unnecessary medical treatments using a series of phantom clinics." Described in indictments unsealed Oct. 13 in five states — California, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Ohio — the defendants allegedly stole the identities of doctors and thousands of Medicare beneficiaries and operated at least 118 different phony clinics in 25 states.
"The emergence of international organized crime in domestic health care fraud schemes signals a dangerous expansion that poses a serious threat to consumers as these syndicates are willing to exploit almost any program, business or individual to earn an illegal profit," said Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grinder.