Armen Kazarian, an alleged Armenian crime boss rounded up by U.S. authorities in 2010 on charges of attempting to defraud Medicare out of $100 million, was sentenced today to three years imprisonment by a U.S. federal court in New York. 

Press reports say that Kazarian pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. 

 His American-Armenian lawyer Mark Geragos, told RIA Novosti on Friday that his client will be out of prison later this year because of the time he’s already served. 

Kazarian, nicknamed “Pzo” is said to be a member of a Eurasian crime syndicate known as the “thieves-in-law”, a criminal caste that grew in the Soviet prison system. 

In 2010, Kazarian was rounded up with 40 other mostly Armenian suspects in the Medicare scam. 

Some Russian press reports have linked Kazarian to notorious Russia-based thief-in-law Aslan Usoyan, who was shot dead by a sniper in central Moscow last month, but organized crime experts say there is little proof linking the two.