Has to reimburse more than $4 million also to US Govt.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A Detroit-area businessman named Zahir Yousafzai was sentenced last month to 72 months in prison, for a Medicare fraud scheme that bilked the US government out of millions of dollars.
Yousafzai (44) was sentenced on May 22, sending him to jail for six years followed by another three years of supervised release. Additionally, Yousafzai will have to reimburse the US government $4,131,135, along with his various co-defendants, who assisted Yousafzai in orchestrating the scheme over a period of several years.
Between July 2008 and September 2011, Yousafzai used two medical clinics that he co-owns, Physicians Choice Home Health Care LLC and Quantum Home Care Inc., to bill the federal Medicare program for procedures that were not performed by him or licensed medical professionals. Often times, the procedures billed for were never performed at all, making them completely fraudulent.
Two other clinics, First Care Home Health Care LLC and Moonlite Home Care Inc., were both owned, at least in part, by Yousafzai after he acquired them in 2009. Yousafzai also used these clinics in the scheme, getting his employees and physicians assistants to administer treatment that they weren’t legally allowed to or licensed to perform.
Over the course of the three year-long scheme, Yousafzai and company made $13.8 million. Yousafzai also created a shell company called A-1 Nursing and Rehab Inc., through which Yousafzai laundered his illicit profits to keep it from the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies.
A joint task force of the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Office of the Inspector General, investigated the scheme and arrested Yousafzai, eventually bringing him to a trial that culminated with his being found guilty last month.
The investigation was also assisted by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which has seized close to $6 billion in illegally obtained funds since its inception in March of 2007.