Prosecutors charged 73 individuals in several states with allegations of racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
[5] In addition to FBI, IRS and local enforcement agencies in California, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Ohio were involved in the probe.
[7][8] 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.
[2] According to authorities, the investigation started after they received reports about theft of personal information, including Social Security numbers of 2,900 Medicare patients in upstate New York.
[1] In the state of Georgia, six people, Arthur Manasarian, 58; Gegham Sargsyan, 56; Khoren Gasparian, 27; Sahak Tumanyan, 43, and his wife, Hasmik Tumanyan, 38; and Toni R. Lowery, 27, five of them being ethnic Armenians were indicted for opening, operating and filing false claims to defraud Medicaid from five fake clinics in Brunswick, Savannah and Macon such as "Brunswick Medical Supply Inc".
All six charged with the crime by Ohio authorities are ethnic Armenians: Karen Chilyan, Eduard Oganesyan and Arus Gyulbudakyan aka Fina Markova the leader of Ohio ring have already been apprehended while Lilit Galstyan, Julieta Ghazaryan and Marine Movsisyan are still at-large.
[14] In February 2013, Kazarian was sentenced to 37 months in prison, to three years of supervised release and was also ordered to pay a $60,000 fine.