Five Charged in $15 Million Medicare Hospice Fraud Scheme

Federal authorities have charged five individuals in an alleged multimillion-dollar Medicare fraud scheme involving sham hospice companies in the Los Angeles area.

According to the unsealed indictment released Thursday by the US Department of Justice, the defendants allegedly used stolen identities of foreign nationals to set up fake hospice companies and submit fraudulent claims to Medicare for services never provided to patients. The scheme, which lasted several years, resulted in over $15 million in fraudulent billings to the government health-care program, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors allege that three of the defendants, Petros Fichidzhyan, Juan Carlos Esparza, and Karpis Srapyan, ...