Back in the United States, federal prosecutors have charged forty-four people in what’s being called the single largest Medicare fraud scam to date. The US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, said the multi-state scheme was carried out by an Armenian American crime syndicate.

Preet Bharara: “According to the first indictment, this criminal organization opened more than 118 bogus medical clinics in twenty-five different states. What’s more, these clinics billed Medicare for over $100 million in false claims, even though most of the clinics existed only on paper. Most were nothing more than shams, shells and storefronts. The organization allegedly stole the identities of real doctors, stole the identities of real Medicare beneficiaries, and then submitted bill after bill for treatments that no doctor ever performed and that no patient ever received.”