[ad_1]
The workplace of a Van Nuys actual property companies company was quiet on a latest work day, void of consumers or calls.
That was uncommon, mentioned proprietor Edward Akhparian.
He wasn’t the one one who observed the change.
Some neighboring enterprise house owners mentioned they, too, took successful after Dr. Mehmet Oz, a high federal well being official within the Trump administration, posted a now-viral video by which he talked about alleged rampant well being care fraud in Los Angeles County. Within the video, Oz stood exterior a small buying middle stuffed with Armenian American companies, together with one that he recognized as a hospice middle.
Apart from Akhparian’s workplace, different companies positioned inside that buying middle embrace an insurance coverage agency, pharmacy and meals market. The house owners of a few of these firms mentioned enterprise was down 20% to 30% for a minimum of a number of days after Oz’s Jan. 27 video.
Edgar Gabrielyan, proprietor and common supervisor of The 1 and Solely Insurance coverage, in his workplace on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, performs a video he had posted to Fb by which he mentioned Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers, owed Armenians an apology. Oz had posted a video to social media, which was shot on the Van Nuys buying middle the place Gabrielyan’s workplace is positioned, alleging rampant well being care fraud within the surrounding neighborhood. (Photograph by David Crane, Los Angeles Every day Information/SCNG)
1 of 6
Edgar Gabrielyan, proprietor and common supervisor of The 1 and Solely Insurance coverage, in his workplace on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, performs a video he had posted to Fb by which he mentioned Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers, owed Armenians an apology. Oz had posted a video to social media, which was shot on the Van Nuys buying middle the place Gabrielyan’s workplace is positioned, alleging rampant well being care fraud within the surrounding neighborhood. (Photograph by David Crane, Los Angeles Every day Information/SCNG)
It’s unclear if clients and purchasers are staying away attributable to fears that the encircling companies are in some way related to fraud.
Or if it’s out of issues that federal immigration brokers might quickly have a surging presence within the space, as they did in Minnesota after President Donald Trump introduced a crackdown on alleged fraud at day care facilities run by Somali residents there.
Or there might be different causes.
What is obvious, the enterprise house owners mentioned, is that they’re paying the worth.
Akhparian, a dealer, moved into the buying middle at Victory Boulevard and Mammoth Avenue within the mid-Nineteen Eighties. The co-owner of Trimax Elite Corp. and Trimax Credit score Restore, firms that present actual property companies and credit score consultancy, Akhparian mentioned the foyer of his workplace often has purchasers ready to be seen. However the foot visitors has slowed, he mentioned, as he led a reporter and photographer from the Southern California Information Group by means of his empty workplace round midday on Monday.
“Folks aren’t coming,” he mentioned. “Individuals are scared.”
By the tip of that work week, Akhparian’s state of affairs had worsened.
“Each day we often get 15 to twenty purchasers,” he mentioned on Friday. “Proper now, it’s right down to 4 or 5. It’s arduous to make a residing.”
Edgar Gabrielyan, proprietor and common supervisor of The 1 & Solely Insurance coverage Providers, reported an identical loss in foot visitors. He posted a video on Fb, saying Oz owed all Armenians an apology.
“He (Oz) simply got here and, like, cursed the buying middle, and he simply walked away,” Gabrielyan mentioned.
As a father, house owner and small enterprise proprietor, Gabrielyan spoke of his monetary obligations — and never solely to his circle of relatives, however to a few workers and their households, whose livelihoods rely upon the paychecks from him.
“I’m offended,” he mentioned. “I’m pissed off.”
Akhparian and Gabrielyan mentioned the buying middle’s parking zone is often full. However on Monday, the lot — with three to 4 dozen parking spots — was about one-third empty.
They attributed the lighter foot visitors to the video that Oz, the administrator for the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers, posted on social media.
In it, Oz was pushed across the neighborhood in a automobile. He mentioned 42 hospices are registered inside a four-block stretch of that space, as he raised the potential for fraud.
He then stood exterior the buying middle and pointed towards a constructing unit on the second ground, figuring out it as a hospice middle and saying that $3.5 billion in fraud involving hospices and residential well being care companies had been uncovered in Los Angeles.
Oz mentioned “fairly a bit” of the alleged fraudulent actions are run by “the Russian Armenian mafia.”
“You discover the lettering and language behind me is of that dialect,” he mentioned because the digital camera zoomed in on an indication for a bakery promoting lavash, a preferred flatbread in Armenian tradition.
The video drew swift condemnation from area people members and a few elected officers from California, with many, similar to Rep. Laura Friedman, accusing Oz of ethnic profiling. Friedman is a Democrat from Glendale, residence to a big Armenian inhabitants.
Additionally essential was Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, whose relations survived the Armenian genocide. The council member known as Oz’s video “blatant racism.”
“Why the give attention to Armenian and Cyrillic languages?” Nazarian mentioned in a video uploaded to YouTube. “Why zoom in on Armenian companies? Couldn’t the purpose about one fraud case have been made with out dragging a complete group into it.
“Us Armenians know precisely what that is once we see it; it’s propaganda,” Nazarian added.
Oz, who’s of Turkish descent, was born within the U.S., however his twin citizenship and his earlier service within the Turkish army had been used as assault factors by his opponents throughout his failed run for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat in 2022. His opponents criticize his ties to Turkey because the Turkish authorities doesn’t acknowledge the Armenian genocide that came about within the early 1900s.
Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s workplace has filed a civil rights grievance with the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers and known as for an investigation following Oz’s video. In its letter, Newsom’s workplace accused Oz of spewing “baseless and racially charged allegations focusing on the Armenian group.”
Responding to the announcement by the governor’s workplace that it was reviewing stories that Oz had focused the Armenian American group, Oz mentioned on X: “If there have been an actual protection for California’s fraud disaster, we’d hear it. CMS (Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers) and legislation enforcement will maintain doing the precise work: going after fraudsters, interval.”
Neither the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers nor the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers, which oversees Oz’s company, responded to a request for added remark for this text.
To make sure, California has had its share of well being care fraud, however Newsom and different elected officers insist the state was addressing the issue lengthy earlier than the Trump administration obtained concerned.
Following a 2020 Los Angeles Instances investigation about fraud amongst hospice suppliers, Newsom signed a invoice that, since 2022, has positioned a moratorium on new hospice licenses within the state. That ban is in impact by means of the tip of this 12 months.
As well as, the California Division of Public Well being revoked the licenses of greater than 280 hospices over the previous two years and has recognized about 300 extra hospices underneath assessment for attainable license revocation, in response to the governor’s workplace.
On Thursday, California Legal professional Basic Rob Bonta introduced the arrests of seven individuals accused of hospice fraud in Monterey County. The case, he mentioned, demonstrates that claims that California isn’t doing something to handle fraud are unfaithful.
“Preventing fraud is a part of our common, ongoing work, and over time we now have constructed actual experience in figuring out abuse, holding dangerous actors accountable, and recovering taxpayer {dollars},” Bonta mentioned in an announcement. “To recommend in any other case is simply flawed.”
In the meantime, again on the buying middle in Van Nuys, whereas some clients have stayed away after the Oz video, others have gone out of their option to help a small meals market that opened in that location late final 12 months.
Anna Khachatryan made some extent of driving from close by Burbank, the place she lives, to buy at Sherman Method Market earlier this week.
Khachatryan, who’s Armenian American, and her husband walked out of there with ice cream and a pack of lavash. She mentioned she wished to help the enterprise, whose proprietor advised KABC Channel 7 within the days proper after the Oz video got here out that his retailer had seen a few 30% drop in buyer visitors in a single day. (The shop proprietor, who additionally owns the bakery whose enterprise signal was featured in Oz’s video, declined additional touch upon Thursday.)
And what in regards to the different enterprise house owners?
Akhparian, of Trimax, remains to be upset that Oz used the time period “Russian Armenian mafia” whereas filming a video that confirmed his enterprise and others within the buying middle, calling the affiliation unfounded.
“Mafia? What mafia? The place’s my gun?” Akhparian requested whereas patting himself down and feigning to be in quest of a weapon.
“I’m not a mafia,” he mentioned. “It bothers me so much.”
Employees author Jason Henry contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
