SoCal pair milked Medicare for $6 million in gold bars, other riches, feds allege

A Medicare fraud scheme ran by a Southern California duo involved multiple local medical facilities, foreign nationals, fake bank accounts and laundering millions of dollars with gold in a Glendale apartment, prosecutors say.

Larchmont-area resident Sophia Shaklian, 36, and Alex Alexsanian, 47, of Burbank, are accused of submitting more than $54 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for hospice and diagnostic testing services that were never provided, then illegally laundering the $23 million they received in reimbursements, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the indictment.

As a part of that scheme, about $6 million in gold bars and coins were purchased and moved through an apartment a few blocks from The Americana at Brand in Glendale, according to the indictment.

The duo was arrested Wednesday and indicted on 24 counts altogether by a federal grand jury in connection with incidents over the last five years.

Shaklian, who often used aliases, submitted Medicare claims on behalf of seven healthcare providers across Los Angeles County, including a hospice company she owned, the Chateau d’Lumina Hospice and Palliative Care in Pasadena, prosecutors said.

Shaklian and her co-conspirators submitted claims for services on behalf of beneficiaries “who, in fact, never received any such services, did not need them, and were not even familiar with the fraudulent providers,� U.S. Attorney spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy wrote in the release. The $54 million worth of claims were submitted from March 2019 to August 2024.

Shaklian allegedly laundered some of the $23 million in Medicare reimbursements by transferring them to accounts held in the name of a fake identity, prosecutors said.

Alexsanian is accused of directing a foreign national, described as a Ukrainian citizen who later left the country, to open a medical facility in Sylmar and acquire an ongoing practice in Van Nuys, two of the locations for which Shaklian submitted false claims, according to the indictment. Alexsanian then had the Ukrainian relinquish control of the facilities’ bank accounts to him, prosecutors said.

Alexsanian is accused of conspiring with the foreign national and others to then launder Medicare reimbursements to buy gold bars and coins, prosecutors said.

Shaklian has been charged with 16 counts of healthcare fraud and four counts of transactional money laundering after an investigation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General and the FBI, the release said. Alexsanian is charged with one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and three counts of concealment money laundering.