Two Pakistani men, Burhan Mirza and Kashif Iqbal, have been indicted in the US for a $10 million Medicare fraud in which they submitted thousands of fraudulent documents to claim Medicare and other medical insurance money.
Burhan Mirza is a resident of Pakistan and he handled the fraud from Pakistan. His Nexus BPO Solution controlled sensitive patient information used to submit claims without authorization.Texas-based Kashif Iqbal worked as Mirza’s U.S. agent. He is accused of facilitating the transfer of fraud proceeds to Pakistan and managing the logistics of the scheme on American soil.In 2023 and 2024, Burhan Mirza and Kashif Iqbal, along with several co-schemers, used nominee-owned laboratories and durable medical equipment providers to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare and private health care benefit programs for items and services that were not provided, the indictment states, the DoJ documents said. The indictment charges Mirza with 12 counts of health care fraud and five counts of money laundering. Iqbal is charged with 12 counts of health care fraud, six counts of money laundering, and one count of making a false statement to US law enforcement. Arraignments in federal court in Chicago have not yet been scheduled.
How did the scam work
The first stage of the scam was identity theft. Through the Pakistan-based BPO, they illegally obtained Medicare numbers and personal information of people and submitted fake claims.
Then they used to submit fake bills of diagnostic tests. They had aides to pose as nominee owners of the purported medical businesses that Mirza and Iqbal used in their false submissions to Medicare.They used IT companies as shell companies to route the money.
Who were the co-schemers?
Three alleged co-schemers, including an Indian-origin man, were previously indicted as part of this investigation. Mir Akbar Khan, 57, of West Chicago, Illinois, recruited and managed individuals, including Fasiur Rahman Syed, 47, a citizen of India who resided in Chicago, to pose as the nominee owners of the purported medical businesses that Mirza and Iqbal used in their false submissions to Medicare. Navaid Rasheed, 43, a Pakistani citizen residing in Plano, Texas, admitted that he tracked payments of false claims in the United States to nominee-owned companies, as well as the disbursement of the fraud proceeds to co-schemers.
Khan, Syed, and Rasheed are awaiting sentencing.
