"This is not the first and biggest crime by Armenian gangsters in U.S. health care system"

Over 40 members of a criminal enterprise mainly composed of Americans of Armenian descent and citizens of Armenia have been arrested in New York and Los Angeles with charged of theft of personal data of thousands of doctors and patients that the criminals used to steal millions of dollars in from Medicare, designed to provide medical care for the elderly in the U.S. How did Americans react to this news?

In total, 73 members of the gang were detained across America in connection with this crime. The total amount of damage to the system of Medicare is estimated at $163 million. Leader of the gang is a 46-year-old Armen Kazarian, a resident of Glendale (Calif.), who was granted political asylum in the United States in 1996 as a "refugee from Azerbaijan." As it turned out, a refuge status was obtained through fraud, and, apparently, Kazarian has never lived in Azerbaijan.

The American public may respond only with a complete aversion to cheating and stealing millions from the health care system for Americans of retirement age. After all, the Medicare is financed directly through the money of American taxpayers and the effect of the crime is the most noticeable at a time of economic difficulties in the United States. American society has just witnessed the ability of some Armenians to profit from the resources for health care of older people in the U.S. In the same way many of us are familiar with the ability of some of Armenians to profit from lives and future of children and elderly people in Azerbaijan and even Armenia.  

How big is the part of the Armenian diaspora in various criminal acts committed in the United States?

Although this crime has become the first for its scale for Medicare system, this is not the first and probably not the biggest crime of the Armenian groups in the U.S. health care system. In 1999, the FBI detained Armenian gangsters who in fraudulent ways stole about $1 billion from Medicare, the heath care system for elderly financed by the State of California.

Isolated cases of fraud in smaller amounts by smaller groups have occurred in the courts of California over the past ten years. I would not generalize the crimes committed in the U.S. on a national basis, because crime is an individual choice.

There are criminals in the Armenian diaspora as in other communities in the United States. Nevertheless, the fight against organized crime should be primary objective of its leaders in any community. For example, instead of promoting hatred against Turks and Azerbaijanis, the leader of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Ken Hachikian would better address the issues of education, health and crime in his community. Instead, on October 11, he published another letter in the Wall Street Journal saying he was against Matthew Bryza’s appointment as an ambassador to Azerbaijan. I think it is time for the American Armenians, who unsuccessfully direct huge sums of money to ANCA’s shady actions, to think about it.

Can we assume that the money of Armenian criminals in the U.S. bought out loyalty of some U.S. senators who advocate the recognition of the mythical "Armenian genocide" or hinder Matthew Bryza’s appointment as U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan?

According to an article published about this issue in famous analytical website Politico, in July this year, Pogos Satamyan of Glendale, one of the suspects in connection with this crime, made a contribution of $10.000 dollars to the campaign of the Democratic Party in Congress. It is not excluded that a certain portion of this amount was used in election campaigns of democrat congressmen and senators. Interestingly, on the same month, Senator Barbara Boxer, a fierce opponent of Bryza’s appointment as an ambassador to Azerbaijan, published in her site a material about how she "fights" cheating in Medicare system with the help of Armenian National Committee of America.

People in the United States are well familiar with Jack Kevorkian who is also known as "Doctor Death", physician who popularized euthanasia and was convicted of killing his patients. And now people became aware of a large Armenian criminal gang operating in the United States. How it can impact opinion of ordinary Americans about the Armenians living in the United States?

Once again, I will not explain examples you cite in term of nationality because I believe these cases are of individual nature regardless of ethnicity. Such a generalization is very alien to American mentality just as ANCA leader Aram Hamparyan and Senator Barbara Boxer are alien to the American mentality who evaluate the ability of diplomats based on nationality of their wives.


/Day.Az/