Khaim and Arkadiy Khaimov, owners of over a dozen pharmacies in New York City and Long Island, were charged for their roles in a $30 million health care fraud and money laundering scheme in which they exploited Medicare emergency codes and edits for COVID-19 in order to submit allegedly fraudulent claims for cancer drugs that were never provided, ordered or authorized by medical professionals. The defendants allegedly acquired control over more than a dozen New York pharmacies by paying others to pose as the owners of the pharmacies and hiring pharmacists to pretend to be supervising pharmacists at the pharmacies for the purpose of obtaining pharmacy licenses. The medication allegedly billed for, Targretin Gel 1%, has an average wholesale price of approximately $34,000 for each 60 gram tube. The indictment also alleges that the defendants engaged in a money laundering conspiracy with the proceeds of the fraud by creating sham pharmacy wholesale companies which they named after pre-existing pharmacy wholesalers, and fabricated references to invoices to make it appear that funds transferred from the pharmacies to the sham pharmacy wholesale companies were for legitimate pharmaceutical drug purchases.