The benifits of foriegn immagration to the US

[tombogan03884]

As if the Wop's weren't entertaining enough, now we get the Sopranoski's.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101014/ap_on_bi_ge/us_medicare_fraud_arrests


NEW YORK – A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.

The scheme's scope and sophistication "puts the traditional Mafia to shame," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. "They ran a veritable fraud franchise."

Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was "completely notional," Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI's New York office, said in a statement. "The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage."

The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a "vor," prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, was in custody in Los Angeles.

Bharara said it was the first time a vor — "the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather" — had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.

[tombogan03884]

The Russian" Mafiya" first started showing up in America in the late 80's with Cigarette scams, and drugs. the Mafia first met them in the early  90's when one of the NY crews stumbled on the gas tax scam, Some former Soviet buys a gas station gets a line of credit from a gas supplier then sells the gas like normal and pockets the tax money for a short term scam they don't pay for the gas either, but the real money comes from running it longer term and just keeping the tax.
Their access to huge quantities of weapons, up to, and including  Submarines, (Whiskey class if I recall, I heard PepsiCo bought at least one $100.000, delivered.) and Nukes made them attractive business associates.

[fightingquaker13]

Ah, free enterprise (literally in this case). Imagine what the USSR would have been had Stalin not shot the Russian entrepeurs. On second thought, maybe he had the right idea.
FQ13

[Solus]

Interesting when you consider that without a tax on gasoline and the hand out of Medicare, those two scams would not work.

[mosbear]

As if the Wop's weren't entertaining enough, now we get the Sopranoski'sSopranian.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101014/ap_on_bi_ge/us_medicare_fraud_arrests


NEW YORK – A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.

The scheme's scope and sophistication "puts the traditional Mafia to shame," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. "They ran a veritable fraud franchise."

Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was "completely notional," Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI's New York office, said in a statement. "The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage."

The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a "vor," prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, was in custody in Los Angeles.

Bharara said it was the first time a vor — "the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather" — had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.

Small correction first, Tom.
U.S attorney's name from the article sounds like a good Irish name too
Jocks aside, this is more about ineficiencies of the government run programs then about the sophistication of the criminals.

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

It's not that criminals are that organized, it's that LE is that f&#ked up.

[Pathfinder]

Re: The benifits of foriegn immagration to the US - based on the title, why isn't this thread blank?

[tombogan03884]

Because introducing "out of the box thinking" is so beneficial to society.

( And because I'm a sarcastic pr!*k,  Do we need supplies in the corner ? )

[mosbear]

It's not that criminals are that organized, it's that LE is that f&#ked up.

I didn't know Dept. of Health and Human Services has the LE branch.

[tombogan03884]

Believe it or not, the FDA even has a SWAT team.  Deli ninja's ?