Department of Justice Charges Two Men in Alleged $227,000,000 Medicare Scam

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is charging two men with running a $227 million Medicare scheme.

According to a new press release, Syed Murtuza Kablazada, 34, of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and Syed Mehdi Hussain, 32, of Carol Stream, Illinois, owned and operated medical labs that submitted fake Medicare claims for COVID-19 test kit reimbursement that were allegedly never provided to beneficiaries.

As alleged in court documents, the defendants hired foreign nationals as owners of the labs asking for fraudulent Medicare claims with the plan for them to flee the country once the labs started being investigated.

Not only did the labs rarely provide COVID-19 test kits to beneficiaries, but the defendants allegedly went so far as to pay a marketing company to acquire the names of hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to be used in the fraud.

Said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, of the purported scheme:

“As alleged, the defendants used straw owners at multiple laboratories to cause the submission of more than $200 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for COVID-19 test kits.

Healthcare fraud harms Americans by squandering taxpayer money and diverting limited resources from those who need them most. The Criminal Division will continue to aggressively prosecute these crimes to hold fraudsters accountable, protect victims, and recover financial losses.”

Source