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Five people have been sentenced to prison for orchestrating a massive scheme to drain millions from Medicare.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, five people in California – Carlos Esparaza, Karpis Srapyan, Mihran Panosyan, and Petros Fichidzhyan, and Susanna Harutyunyan – have been handed multi-year sentences for defrauding Medicare out of $16 million.
Court documents show that Esparaza colluded with Fichidzhyan and Srapyan to operate four sham hospices, one of which was owned by Esparaza, collecting Medicare payments despite not actually operating as a medical facility.
To hide their tracks, authorities say they used the identities of foreign nationals to open bank accounts, sign property leases, submit as information to Medicare, and use to act as “straw operators” of the fake hospices.
Furthermore, it was found that the perpetrators engaged in a money laundering scheme with Harutyunyan, using the foreign nationals’ identities to maintain bank accounts, credit cards, debits cards, and checkbooks, moving the funds to shell accounts to obfuscate the scam.
Esparaza pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to 57 months behind bars to pay $1.82 million worth of restitution, while Harutyunyan was handed a 15-month sentence and ordered to pay $2.82 million.
Srapyan and Panosyan were also handed 57 month sentences and were ordered to pay $3.2 million and $4.68 million in restitution respectively while Fichidzhyan was given the harshest sentence of 12 years and $17.2 million in restitution.
