Man charged with fraudulent $83.6 million COVID-19 testing scheme on bail

By Brett Rowland (The Center Square)

A man who federal prosecutors say is responsible for a fraudulent $83.6 million COVID-19 testing scheme is on bail after filing the deed to his 5,600-foot suburban Chicago home squares.

Prosecutors don’t just want the house, which is worth at least $865,000. They are asking for $83,578,387.89.

Prosecutors are asking for the confiscation of five luxury cars and several bank accounts. The vehicles include a 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLB 250, 2021 Land Rover Range Rover HSE, 2021 Lamborghini Urus, 2021 Bentley, and 2022 Tesla X. They additionally want a bank account with around $6.8 million, 810 $000 in an E*Trade account, $500,000 in a Fidelity Investments account and $245,814 in a Coinbase account, according to court records.

Zishan Alvi, 44, from Inverness, said on Wednesday he planned to fight the charges against him.

“We just have to fight this and prove my innocence,” Alvi said. “The truth always comes out.”

He declined to comment on specifics and referred further questions to his attorney, Murdoch Walker. Walker did not respond to an email or return a voicemail requesting comment.

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Prosecutors allege Alvi co-owns and operates a Chicago lab, LabElite, which claimed to offer COVID-19 testing. The lab requested reimbursement for tests that had never been performed, had been performed improperly, or had already been paid for by the customer. Alvi faces ten counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of public funds.

The lab also offered a service where individuals and businesses could pay a fee to receive COVID-19 PCR test results on an expedited basis. The lab enrolled in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration’s Uninsured Program in December 2020. The program was designed to cover the costs of COVID-19 testing for people without health insurance coverage, according to a charge filed by prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the lab submitted fraudulent claims and provided inaccurate and unreliable test results to the public. The claims were for reimbursement for tests that prosecutors say Alvi did not perform or were unreliable and, in some cases, had already been paid for by the person.

Prosecutors said Alvi provided negative test results to report to people who provided a sample for testing, but the test was not performed. They further allege that Alvi instructed lab employees to falsely indicate in lab records that COVID-19 tests were performed for these individuals, when Alvi knew the test samples were discarded under his direction and had not been tested. To conceal the fact that the tests were not performed, the lab “did not release positive COVID-19 results on the samples where the tests were ultimately performed, as a purported negative result had already been released” , according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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The lab collected more than $83.6 million from the uninsured HRSA program as payment for COVID-19 tests allegedly performed by the lab.

“The charges in this case allege that the defendant ignored public health concerns in favor of personal financial gain,” Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual said in a statement. “To do so by undermining taxpayer-funded programs intended to combat the spread of the coronavirus was particularly reprehensible.”

Each count of wire fraud carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison, and the count of theft of public funds carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. federal prison.

Alvi filed the deed to his home in Inverness as part of a pre-trial release agreement, court records show.

Syndicated with permission from The central square.