Scam for $ 163 million

In America, the leader of the "Armenian mafia", who has complained on medical insurance, is judged

In the investigation of the largest scams in the field of state medical insurance in the history of the United States, the first sensation. Without waiting for the court appointed for the summer of 2012, the 47-year-old “thief in law” Armen Ghazaryan nicknamed PZO, considered the “godfather of the Armenian mafia” in America, found himself guilty. How it was and what follows - the author of The New Times learned directly from the documents of the American court

The main defendants of the scams were tied on October 13, 2010 immediately in nine cities of the United States

FBI agents seize the equipment of a psychiatric clinic in Miami (Florida), whose administration was in collusion with scammers

“I was a member of a criminal collusion,” Ghazaryan through a translator said to the federal judge Paul Gardiff. The American Themisa heard such words from a criminal of this level for the first time. The last “thief in law” arrested in the United States for criminal prosecutions was the late Vyacheslav Ivankov nicknamed Japanchik-he was taken in June 1995. But he, unlike Ghazaryan, after the arrest was silent in a rag and demanded a lawyer.

The virtuals “in the law” of Armen Ghazaryan were arrested in the fall of 2010 along with 73 other defendants, mainly emigrant Armenians from the former USSR and citizens of independent Armenia. They were brought a whole bouquet of accusations - from immigration fraud to money laundering. But the most sensational concerned the grandiose scam, during which scammers, according to the prosecutor's office, “divorced” Medicare - the state medical care system of the elderly. The FBI has been conveered to the gang by the Mirzoyan and Terjanyan (OMT) organization - by the names of its two leaders. The "godfather" Ghazaryan provided personal patronage, in other words, roofed. The scammers acted according to a scheme that no one had yet thought of in the United States.

One of the leaders of the criminal group is Robert Terjanyan (in the center)

The mechanism of medical scams is monotonous: scammers agree with doctors, open the clinic in their name and drag patients there who allow them to use their surnames and registration numbers in the social support system. And then the state has accounted for the mythical treatment of these patients or the equipment allegedly provided by it, for example, wheelchairs or special beds

* * Read more about this, see The New Times No. 8 of March 7, 2011. . But one way or another, all these schemes needed real doctors, real clinics and real patients. But the criminal group that Kharyan was roofed without three indicated elements, acting in virtual mode. OMT did not need real doctors - she stole their personal data. She did not open real clinics either - she was enough mailboxes or empty rooms removed for this purpose. The scammers did not seduce potential patients with canned goods, but used their stolen names and registration numbers. “Lime, or phantom, clinics existed only on paper,” notes the prosecutor’s office, which has investigated this case since 2009. “They did not have doctors, and they did not treat any patients.”

The Armenian “group” included scammers of “Slavic nationality”, for example, Mikhail Dobrushin (photo from above) and Galina Vuk (in the lower photo)

Although dozens of people were in the OMT, the scale of the scams were so great that Mirzoyan-Termean did not have time to keep track of everything and sometimes got into trouble. For example, their phantom pathologist issued Medicare accounts for inspecting quite healthy patients. The ENT doctor asked to pay him an ultrasound translucent of pregnant women. Sleep disturbances treated either a surgeon, then a dermatologist, then a therapist. The anus was engaged in a pathologist, then an ear-mountain, then a psychiatrist.

The organizers of the scam knew perfectly well that their century was short - Medicare administrators would catch up sooner or later. Therefore, the estimated lifespan of phantom clinics (and fraudsters opened 118 pieces in 25 US states) did not exceed several months. Then the clinic closed, and a new one opened instead. But for her short life, OMT managed to present Medicare to pay an invoice for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. And Medicare paid: scammers managed to spend more than $ 35 million from it. From January 2008 to June 2010, $ 112,475 in cash was received in Bank of America alone. The “godfather” traveled on Rolls-Royce Fantom for $ 350 thousand, although his lawyer Mark Heragos now claims that the car did not belong to his client. The young ladies were cashed out in jewelry shops or in the Las Vegas casino, where piles of chips were bought on them. In addition, in different ways, the money was transferred to Armenia or put into bank accounts opened by people who were going to return to the Transcaucasian Republic. The idea in this case was that if the authorities realize and begin to find out the origin of the money, then there would be no one to ask.

Without details, the sincere recognition of the charative ended with a zilch. The fact is that the procedure for finding guilt in the American court is determined by a special protocol, which, in particular, provides that the accused formulates in his own words what, in fact, he admits. I could not really do this charative. The attempt to recognize lasted about twenty minutes, until the judge finally remarked: "You said that you participated in conspiracy, but I did not hear the details of the conspiracy." “We were completely out of breath, transferring from English to Armenian and then again from Armenian to English,” the lawyer Mark Heragos tried to explain. He also proved that the Ghazaryan is generally “illiterate”, that he speaks in a special dialect of the Armenian, which includes Armenian words mixed with the Russians, and therefore did not understand the Febeer translators who spoke in another dialect. And in general, they say, Ghazaryan in the past had only sporadic contact with American justice and therefore did not really think what was happening. But these arguments did not convince the judge of gradfi, he asked Ghazaryan to better prepare for the next meeting, which was still postponed, but it is unlikely to be postponed for a long time. The most curious, however, is in another.

The defendant with the connections

According to the Crime Russia website, Armen Ghazaryan was repeatedly convicted by Yerevan, Coronan, in 1991 in Rostov-on-Don in the presence of “thieves in the law” of brick and Artyushi. According to operational data, the PZO in the 1990s was the leader of an organized criminal group engaged in the illegal turnover of weapons, precious stones and rare earth metals, drug smuggling, as well as kidnapping and extortion. In December 1993, on the Rostov -Moscow highway, two Armenian “thieves in law” of Abo and Leva were shot. Armen Ghazaryan was suspected of organizing their murder, but he managed to avoid responsibility, as in the case of detention in Moscow in the same year for robbery in the group. In 1995, the PZO himself ended up on a hair from death, when next to him in Moscow from a sniper rifle was killed by the criminal authority of Ishkhan Sargsyan, who also took part in the “coronation” of Kazaryan. After that, Armen Ghazaryan moved beyond the ocean, hiding from the revenge of the authorities of the Dagestan organized crime group in Russia. In American court documents there are no references to the above.

The American prosecutor’s office gives in its documents quotes from telephone conversations, which, according to her, testify: scammers had connections in the leadership of Armenia. She does not call specific names, but this does not mean that she does not have them

* According to some reports, Ghazaryan consists on friendly relations with Alexander Sargsyan, the brother of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. . By the way, according to the prosecutors, Ghazaryan also has good connections in Azerbaijan, although he was provided in 1996 as a refuge in the United States on the grounds that he was afraid of persecution in both countries. “The statement of the causes to the shelter was blatantly deceitful,” the prosecutor’s petition said that the “thief in law” would not be released on bail. In particular, Ghazaryan claimed that before his eyes his father was doused with gasoline and set on fire, and he was almost killed when he visited his father's grave. However, in the course of the investigation, it turned out that the father of Ghazaryan is alive and was in Russia. In response, Kazaryan said that he was "mistaken" with the murder of his father.

According to prosecutors, Ghazaryan in recent years went to the Caucasus and to Europe. In April last year, for example, he flew out of Los Angeles to Paris and stayed abroad until July. Returning to the United States, he pointed out on the border in the questionnaire that he was only in France, although from his conversations with Davit Mirzoyan it follows that he spent most of his time in Armenia. The deceit of the immigration department is a serious misconduct, and Ghazaryan threatened the real term of this article. Nevertheless, in exchange for guilty, the prosecutor's office agreed to demand only 37 months of prison for him. Why such indulgence? Maybe this is an advance - in the calculation that the charative will tell the investigation many other interesting details about his life on both sides of the ocean. Or already told?

In the USA there are two federal medical insurance programs: Medicare - for Americans over 65 years old, as well as some categories of disabled people and Medicaid - for the poor. On both programs adopted several decades ago, the state spends about $ 800 billion a year. In March 2007, the US authorities formed an interdepartmental special group to combat fraud in this area. Since then, more than 800 persons and organizations have been involved in the court who were heated by Medicare a total of $ 2 billion.