(Nov. 23, 2010) — It was a Monday afternoon when I noticed my neighbor, a middle aged man wearing a pin-striped Armani suit, starting up his inoperable lawn mower. This was only a month ago, but now his house is left empty with a massive “bank owned” sign dangling on a wooden porch. It was a surprise when I signed onto Yahoo! News the next morning to see that, according to U.S. authorities, the “Armenian Mafia” had committed the largest medical scam in American history by submitting just over $160 million in claims. Federal prosecutors arrested 73 people in the New York and Los Angeles area, 15 of them in Burbank and Glendale. Run by mainly Armenians from Russia, their “Godfather” Armen Kazarian, 46, as well as his proteges, Davit Mirzoyan, 34, and Robert Terdjanian, 35, are now behind bars. What is interesting about this case is how easy it is fool the government and what it took for the case to be discovered. The United States loses billions of dollars a year because of medical fraud. According to the Ponemon Institute, roughly 5.8 percent of American adults have been victimized, and on average the cost per victim is $20,160. As a result, people who need medical care are not given enough funding and are forced to fall into bankruptcy or fall on the floor. Yet, there are thousands of people robbing our tax money by setting up false medical fronts, stealing the identities of doctors and patients, and reporting false appointments and procedures. According to authorities, the Armenian group created 118 fake clinics in 25 states. Many of these “clinics” are nothing more than post office boxes and empty properties. People who commit medical fraud live comfortable lives, all while there are patients lacking proper medical attention. But who is to blame? After all, the vast scheme was only discovered because these criminals got out of hand, reporting false procedures that did not match up with the expertise of the stolen doctor’s identities. This brings up the point that the system is too easy to fool, and so is government regulation. Investigators said that authorities began looking into the situation only after information on 2,900 patients, all of whom received Medicare, were stolen. If this is what it takes to bring situations like these into the limelight, it is a shame. The biggest shame though, is the embarrassment these crooks have caused to the Armenian community. As cool and scary as it sounds, Armenians should not be known for being mafia members and crooks. Armenians should be known for being proper members of society, accomplished doctors and lawyers like the many of them there are, not the people behind the largest medical scam in history. I cannot count the amount of anti-Armenian hate comments made on news discussions such as Yahoo! relating this situation to the guys who drive 80 mph on Glenoaks in their Mercedes Benz. The mafia should not be looked upon as something that is admirable, but a menace to society. This is not The Godfather movie with Marlon Brando, this is real life. Families separate and people die. I hope all the people who think this is cool realize that Armenians are much more accomplished than that. Meanwhile, the greatest punishment for these crooks is not that they rest behind bars but the disgrace they have caused the Armenian community, the government regulation, and themselves.