Prosecutors say labs billed Medicare with beneficiary data bought in Pakistan
A 36-year-old Illinois man pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to running a Medicare fraud scheme that submitted roughly $227 million in fraudulent claims for COVID-19 tests patients never received, prosecutors said.
Syed Murtuza Kablazada, an Indian national living in Des Plaines, Ill., entered the plea to two counts of health care fraud, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Kablazada and his associates purchased three medical laboratories in the Chicago area between January and June 2023 — Chicago Care, V Care and Al-Ameer — and used them to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare for COVID-19 test kits.
Kablazada paid approximately $11 million to a company in Pakistan that claimed to provide telemarketing services, prosecutors said. In exchange, he received personal information belonging to hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries.
Prosecutors said the information was used to bill Medicare for tests that patients had neither requested nor received. The laboratories submitted approximately $227 million in fraudulent claims over six months, and Medicare paid out about $136 million.
To conceal the scheme, Kablazada and his associates moved money through overseas transfers and unlicensed financial intermediaries, prosecutors said. Some of the money was used to purchase luxury vehicles, according to the Justice Department.
As part of his plea agreement, Kablazada agreed to forfeit more than $46 million that federal investigators seized from 10 bank accounts. He faces up to 20 years in prison.