5 Californians Accused of Bilking Medicare out of $20M

On Tuesday, five Southern Californians were arrested and charged with bilking Medicare out of $20 million by recruiting patients for fake treatment and then billing the agency, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Konstantin Mikhaylovich Grigoryan, 56; his wife, Mayya Leonidovna Grigoryan, 54; the couple’s son-in-law, Eduard Gershelis, 34; Mayya Grigoryan’s brother-in-law, Aleksandr Treynker, 48; and Haroutyun Gulderyan, 38, are all charged with conspiracy, health-care fraud, Medicare payoffs, lying to a Medicare provider and currency laundering, the Times reports.

The five suspects are accused of “patient rotating” or “beneficiary sharing,” a practice in which individuals collect information on Medicare beneficiaries to sell to clinics or other medical facilities to produce false billing records, according to the Times.

The ring allegedly used a dozen medical facilities in the Los Angeles area that they had control over since 1997, the Times reports.

A number of those facilities billed Medicare for services, such as blood tests and ultrasounds, regardless of whether those services were ever actually provided, according to the Times.

The group even fabricated records of fake services so that Medicare audits wouldn’t pick up on the fraudulent activity in audits, the Times reports.

The complaint filed in court on Tuesday said the ring hid its profits in bank accounts connected to fake “management” and “consulting” companies, at least one of which was a Swiss account, according to the Times.

Treynker is the only one of the group who will be allowed to leave police custody by posting a $150,000 bond, the Times reports.

For related CSO content, read Anatomy of a Fraud.

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