Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

[londontsi]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

Top criminal would loose respect if they do not after their fellow bretheren.

That is the whole reason for being in politics it seems.
For the majority anyway.



.

[londontsi]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg342442.html

FAR RESIGNATIONS AND NEAR PROBLEMS

By David Petrosian

October 17, 2010


The resignation of the Moscow Mayor - 74-year-old Yuri Luzhkov, who
led the municipality of the Russian capital for 18 years, has had loud
repercussions in the top echelons of the Armenian authorities as
well. At first glance, this would surprise an outsider. Yet this loud
echo has not come as a surprise to the well-informed journalistic
circles of Armenia.

The point is that Armenia has long been one of those corners of the
world where the mayor of the Russian capital has laundered large
amounts of money through various nontransparent clannish-criminal
schemes. The inflow of money from Moscow found reliable partners in
Armenia - at first within the staff of president R. Kocharian, then
that of the current president, S. Sargsyan. Not only the presidents,
but also Yerevan mayors Yervand Zacharian and later Gagik Beglarian
had cooperated closely with Y. Luzhkov on the construction of elite
residential complexes in the capital city of Armenia.

The main investments, made from Moscow under the patronage of
Y. Luzhkov and his partners from Armenia's top leadership, have been
attracted for the construction of upscale buildings in Yerevan, mostly
in the city center. There were other projects as well, including the
construction project of the Noragyugh complex, for which land plots
have already been allotted and the respective designs prepared.
However, following Y. Luzhkov's resignation, not only the Noragyugh
project, but also the financing of several other large and still
incomplete construction projects in Yerevan are likely to be
suspended. This will lead to some problems with GDP growth, business
activity and, in general, the stabilization of the economic situation
in Armenia which has not yet overcome the consequences of the 2009
economic downturn. In this connection we should also remind that in
the past 7-8 years capital construction has been the driving force of
the economic growth in Armenia.

However, these are not all the problems awaiting the Armenian
authorities in connection with Y. Luzhkov's retirement. Another
problem is that the famous businessman Samvel Karapetian - a full
brother of Karen Karapetian, the head of Armenian president Serzh
Sargsyan's staff - was "tied" to a large extent to the personality of
the Moscow mayor.

S. Karapetian heads Tashir Group consisting of manufacturing and
construction enterprises, trade centers, supply and sales agencies,
health resorts, and a chain of hotels and restaurants. In all, he owns
about 200 companies engaged in various sectors of economy and
employing a total of over 30 thousand people. Besides, in 2007 Tashir
Group was in 12th place on the list of owners of Russian real estate
published by Forbes.

Through the S.Karapetian-Y.Luzhkov association, the Armenian
leadership has had an informal "access" to the Kremlin for many
years. After Luzhkov's resignation, this informal channel will cease
functioning for the Armenian leadership.

Luzhkov's resignation will cause some shocks in neighboring
Azerbaijan, too.

It is no secret that Y. Luzhkov is a partner and patron of many
Azerbaijani businessmen. To all appearances, Y. Luzhkov's retirement
will hit the businesses of Moscow-based Azerbaijanis. If the office of
Russian prosecutor general starts an investigation into the ex-mayor's
case, then both Armenian and Azerbaijani businessmen closely connected
with him will seriously suffer.

In connection with Y. Luzhkov's retirement, a number of Azerbaijani
businessmen will have to close their businesses, while others will
have to regroup.

In this situation, much depends (for both Armenians and Azerbaijanis)
on who will become the new mayor of Moscow.

Those in the Kremlin have apparently decided to ease the situation as
much as possible, and most likely, Vladimir Resin - a man from
Y. Luzhkov's team will become the next mayor of Moscow. This supposed
appointment can be considered as an interim one. The truly new mayor
of Moscow will be appointed after the presidential elections to be
held in 2012.

Meanwhile, V. Resin has already demonstrated that he is ready to do
everything possible to avoid great shocks in matters connected with
the resignation of his predecessor. Thus, one of V. Resin's first
orders was the appointment of Fazil Ismailov (full brother of
Azerbaijani billionaire Telman Ismailov) to the post of prefect of
Moscow's Northern District. This was a peculiar message to the
Azerbaijani Diaspora of Russia: "Don't worry, everything is OK. The
good traditions (formed during Luzhkov's tenure) of mutual respect
between the city authorities and the Azerbaijani Diaspora will remain
in the future too".

One should assume that similar calming messages will also be sent to
businessmen from other Diasporas, including the Armenian one.

On the whole, it can be noted that the retirement of Y. Luzhkov has
demonstrated once again that in case of a political force-majeure, the
part of Russia-based Armenian Diaspora's business which is "tied" to
criminals constantly runs high risk.

Yet there are representatives of big Armenian business in Russia who
are not connected with criminals and shadow economy. For example, it
is Ruben Vardanian (Troyka-Dialog OJSC) - person who is not "tied" to
one or another political figure. The businesses of such people
incurred much less risk in case of Y. Luzhkov's resignation.

In conclusion, we should note the following: the joint business
schemes functioning in the Armenian direction under Y. Luzhkov will be
frozen for a while, and then these schemes will be transformed
somewhat. We suppose that later the schemes for laundering money from
Moscow will be revived and, as previously, be channeled for elite-type
construction and trade in Armenia.

[londontsi]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg342443.html

ALARMING RING

By David Petrosian

October 18, 2010


It seemed that the absolutely unremarkable morning of October 14
would pass unnoticed in Yerevan, but for two news reports that
appeared in several print media outlets and the Internet. The matter
is that:

- according to pro-opposition newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak
(Armenian Times), the Russian law enforcement bodies have submitted a
list of 32 representatives of Armenia's political and business elite
to the prosecutor general Aghvan Hovsepian and the head of the
National Security Service Gorik Hakobian. The Russian law enforcement
agencies insist that the persons put on that list are mainly connected
with human and drug trafficking and money laundering. Among those
included in the list are: parliament deputy Alexander (Sashik)
Sargsyan (the Armenian president's full brother), speaker of the
parliament Hovik Abrahamian, head of the State Revenue Committee Gagik
Khachatrian, deputies of the faction "Republican party of Armenia"
Ruben Hayrapetain, Samvel Alexanian and Levon Sargsyan, and Gagik
Tsarukian (leader of the Prosperous Armenia party),

- literally the day before over 40 members of a crime syndicate,
whose backbone is made up of Armenian immigrants, were arrested in New
York and Los Angeles. They have been charged with stealing personal
data of thousands of doctors and patients. By means of identity theft,
the criminals took no less than $35 million from Medicare, a federal
system of health insurance for people over 65.

U.S. Federal Attorney Preet Bharara called the disclosed criminal
group "international", underlining that its leaders had close links
with Armenia, regularly visited this country and purchased real estate
there with money gained by illegal means in the U.S. Bharara compared
the Armenian-American criminal group with the "classical Cosa Nostra",
adding, however, that "in terms of profitability, geographic scope and
sheer ambition this emerging international organized crime syndicate
would be the envy of any traditional mafia family."

According to investigators, the principal leader of Armenian
mafia was Armen Kazarian (nickname Pzo), a "vor v zakone" - thief in
the law, who was arrested in Yerevan on 7 April 2009 and handed over
to U.S. authorities, whereas his main associates were Davit Mirzoyan
of Los Angeles and Robert Terdjanian of New York.

The indictment also says that the criminals used to mislead
U.S. immigration authorities, and with the help of representatives of
a foreign government, they arranged it so that this government refused
to accept persons deported from the U.S., thus depriving U.S.
authorities of the opportunity to expel them from the country to
their homeland.

In the second case, it can be assumed with a strong probability
that one should understand Armenia's government and the whole ruling
administration by the term "foreign government". These events can be
considered as an alarming call for official Yerevan.

The abovementioned events took place against the background of an
extremely worrying and ambiguous foreign political situation for Serzh
Sargsyan and his administration.

The open sources confirm the information that at the summit of
leaders of OSCE states to be held in Astana on December 1-2, 2010, the
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group intend to submit a 17-clause
document to the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan for signing. The
document currently being drafted is likely to contain two sets of
issues, coordinated and not coordinated between Armenian and
Azerbaijani leaders. The coordinated clauses include the clause, under
which official Yerevan gives the go-ahead to withdraw troops from a
certain number of regions of the "security zone". Thus the matter
concerns the preparation for signing a peculiar "roadmap" on the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

It should be mentioned that in case of this document's signing by
president S. Sargsyan or foreign minister E. Nalbandian, official
Yerevan will violate the legal act passed by the Armenian parliament
on 5 July 1992. According to this legal act, official Yerevan has no
right to sign any document on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement
if the signature of the official representative of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic is absent on that document.

Most probably, at the summit of heads of NATO member states to be
held in Lisbon in November, Washington and its partners will make yet
another attempt to persuade the Armenian president to sign the
"roadmap".

Moscow's position is also quite tough. And not everything here is
related to the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The point
is that those in Russia are apparently displeased with the excessive
rapprochement between Yerevan and NATO and the expanded military
cooperation with the North Atlantic alliance. At the same time,
despite the signing of a treaty on prolongation of the Russian
military base's presence in Armenia and the extension of its
responsibility zone, the military cooperation between Yerevan and
Moscow shows a persistent tendency to decline. Thus:

- as of mid-autumn 2010, Russian defense minister Anatoly
Serdyukov and his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanian have met only
twice since early 2010 (and both meetings were mostly official ones),
whereas the number of A. Serdyukov's meetings with Azerbaijani defense
minister Safar Abiyev amounts to five. This circumstance indirectly
shows that Russia is increasing its military-political and
military-technical cooperation with Azerbaijan,

- the latest joint Russian-Armenian military exercises in
Armenia's territory were held in the autumn of 2005. Those command
and staff exercises were the jubilee tenth and last ones (the final
part of the exercises took place at the firing range after Marshal
I. Baghramian with the participation of 1,300 military servicemen from
both sides and 294 units of war equipment), i.e. those exercises were
annual, traditional and included in the schedule of joint combat
training of staffs and units of the two countries. Over the past five
year, such exercises have disappeared from the combat training plans
of Armenia's Defense Ministry and the General Staff and Russian
military structures. This circumstance causes considerable alarm among
Armenian experts who believe that problems are being hushed up amid
much fanfare about cooperation and friendship.

Such tendencies cannot but worry the Russian side. This fact is
partly related to the increased social and political activity of the
Russian embassy in Yerevan in September-October of this year.

We should note that in his speech during the October 15 rally in
Yerevan, the leader of the joint opposition - the Armenian National
Congress, first Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian put stress on
the corruption theme. And this theme was announced earlier, i.e. prior
to the arrests in the U.S. and the publications in Hayakan Zhamanak.
It only remains for us to suppose that all these coincidences
(arrests, publication, and the theme of the main speech at the
opposition rally) can hardly be accidental by their time and subject.

[arakeretzig]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

If anything this shows how ingenious and dangerous Armenians can be......and a message that Armenians are xxxxing done playing nice.

You (the world) allow blockade of people, what you expect, flowers?
I say too bad they got caught....screw the system.

Srsly? defending a bunch of scamers? that's a new low for this forum.
Armenia apologised because there were many Armenian _citizens_ involved, otherwise it would seem Armenia is somehow supporting this. This is how a civilised society behaves, nothing more, nothing less.

[Eddo211]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

If anything this shows how ingenious and dangerous Armenians can be......and a message that Armenians are xxxxing done playing nice.

You (the world) allow blockade of people, what you expect, flowers?
I say too bad they got caught....screw the system.

[levon]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

I don't see any reason for any apologies either. Does the US apologize to its own citizens for all the criminal acts that US citizens get involved in every day?
Does Mexico apologize for ms-13 and ms-19? Do black people apologize for the fact that many blacks are involved in criminal activity that mainly involves drugs and murder? Did the j3ws apologize for Bernard Madoff who literally stole $18 billion? So why should Armenia apologize for some white-collar criminals who stole a total of $35 million.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

why deny it?
Muslims don't want to admit anything about their retarded religion, because they would look bad. Why should Armenia be like that? that's just silly, which is what bell-the-cat is.

Why deny what, exactly? We know what Saudia Arabia was denying, but what would Armenia be denying if it had not apologised? Do think the Armenian republic was complicit in the scam?

I know your reasoning: you think every Armenian should always think and behave according to your idea of what a proper Armenian should be. And when they do not, you feel it reflects badly on you and brings shame on you, like they were children behaving badly because of your parental failure: and for that you feel the need to apologise.

Maybe in some way the origin of their criminality was in the "bad parenting" of the Armenian state, or of Soviet Armenia - but a glib "apology" delivered by today's Armenia in no way indicates that ROA understands what it is apologising for, or indicates that it understands why failings in the state might lead to some of its citizens or former citizens being predisposed to commit criminal acts, or suggests that it wants to fix those failings. In an earlier post you correctly did make a comparison between these Armenian criminals in America and Armenia's own corrupt politicians and their mafia backers. But I bet those politicians, their oligarch allies, as well as those US-based Armenian criminals all think of themselves as being "good Armenians", just as you think you are. And you can bet the Armenian Church will get it cut of the proceeds through donations, and think nothing wrong in it. You apologise for the wrong thing, and decline to face up to the deeper failing.

[arakeretzig]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

why deny it?
Muslims don't want to admit anything about their retarded religion, because they would look bad. Why should Armenia be like that? that's just silly, which is what bell-the-cat is.

[retro]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

Why?
Did Saudi Arabia apologise for the actions of its citizens after 9/11?

Armenia's apology is rather odd and not in keeping with protocol. Maybe you should be more like your southern neighbors and deny everything.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Armenians Gangsters Charged With Largest Medicare Scam Ever

The Republic of Armenia has apologized for the scam

Why?
Did Saudi Arabia apologise for the actions of its citizens after 9/11?