Startling indictments just announced include charges that surgeries patents didn't need were done and, in some cases, operations were performed by an unschooled assistant to a prominent Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon.

Two indictments, the result of a five-year investigation, contain 132 felony counts brought against Dr. Munir Uwaydah, his lawyer, former office manager, and a dozen others.

Those involved, according to a statement by the Los Angeles DA, rang up $150 million in fraudulent insurance payouts. The group allegedly also paid attorneys and marketers up to $10,000 a month each for illegal patient referrals, a practice called “capping”.

The alleged scam is one of the biggest in California history.

In a twist worthy of a dark noir LA thriller, the shocking fraud case contains within it an even-more-shocking murder twist involving the doctor's assistant, Kelly Soo Park, According to the AP. Park, dubbed by prosecutors a "female James Bond," was acquitted two years ago in the strangling death of Uwaydah's model/actress ex-girlfriend, Juliana Redding.

During that trial the prosecution claimed Park had been hired to kill the aspiring young woman after a business deal went bad between her Arizona pharmacist father and the doctor. Uwaydah was not charged in the sensational murder case and claimed no part in the killing.

Park was arraigned in Los Angeles on the fraud charges and is being held on $18.5 million bail.

Uwaydah was busted earlier in September in Germany. His extradition back to the United States is now being sought.

“Today, we put an end to the illegal activities of an organized criminal enterprise that was responsible for one of the largest insurance fraud scams in California’s history,” said District Attorney Lacey in a statement. “Although the patient victims sustained physical harm, we who pay higher premiums for health care suffer economic harm when scams are allowed to continue unchecked.

“With this case we send a clear message that we will continue our mission to protect the community by pursuing criminals who commit fraud in Los Angeles County,” noted the D.A.

The indictment also charges that 21 patients were duped by Uwaydah and his staff into thinking that the doctor would do their surgeries. The procedures were instead done by a physician’s assistant, who never went to medical school, on patients under general anesthesia and with Uwaydah absent from the OR.

All these victims suffered "lasting scars and many required additional surgeries and suffered physical and psychological trauma as a result of their experience in Uwaydah’s clinics" according to the DA's office.

If convicted, Uwaydah and 11 others face up to life in state prison.