Indian National Pleads Guilty In $227 Million COVID Test Scam, Bought Data From Pakistani Firm Syed Murtuza Kablazada, an Indian national living in Des Plaines, Illinois, pleaded guilty Friday to a Medicare fraud scheme that billed $227 million for over-the-counter COVID-19 test kits nobody ordered , the Justice Department said .
Prosecutors say he paid about $11 million to a purported telemarketing company in Pakistan for the personal information of hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, then used it to file the claims. Kablazada, 36, and his co-schemers bought three Chicago-area laboratories - Chicago Care, V Care and Al-Ameer - in a six-month stretch starting in January 2023, according to court documents and his plea.
The labs submitted $227 million in claims for test kits that beneficiaries never requested and never received. Medicare paid about $136 million of it. To hide their role, prosecutors say, the group paid themselves through overseas money transfers and unlicens