A distinguished Pakistani-American businessman who spent years cozying as much as highly effective Democrats stands accused of being a part of a $38 million Medicaid rip-off.
Civic chief and well-known Brooklyn Neighborhood Board 13 member Pervez Siddiqui, 78, was arrested Monday together with seven co-conspirators.
They’re alleged to have run a large-scale Medicaid kickback and false-billing scheme by way of two Social Grownup Day Care (SADC) facilities in Brooklyn: APNA Grownup Daycare and Ashiana Social Grownup Daycare.
The rip-off ran from 2019 by way of December 2025, feds allege, with seniors being signed up for daycares they hardly ever or by no means attended, then getting a reduce of the Medicaid fee.
“Entrepreneurs are going round on the lookout for the Medicaid card. They cease folks on the road, at bus stops. They go into physician’s places of work. They go into NYCHA [government housing] the place they know persons are low earnings. They ask, ‘do you’ve gotten a Medicaid card?” a supply with information of the investigation informed The Submit.
Siddiqui, who owns round 15 pharmacies in New Jersey, is prolific in native political circles and an everyday donor to Democrat campaigns, typically shelling out over $10,000 a pop to native candidates, information present. And thru his ties to a different group he scored an intimate sit down with New York Metropolis mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in December 2025, photos obtained by The Submit present.
Shazia Bibi (a.ok.a. Shazia Wattoo), Abdul Aziz, Shair Ali, and their recruiter co-defendants Zebun Ahmed, Josna Begum, Saira Khatoon, and Atia Shahnaz have been additionally concerned, based on the unsealed indictment towards them.
The gang paid money bribes on to New York Medicaid recipients to enroll at APNA or Ashiana—though most by no means attended their amenities —and paid the recruiters kickbacks to refer sufferers, whereas submitting $38 million in fraudulent claims to New York Medicaid for companies which have been by no means offered, based on the indictment.
To hide the fraud, they created faux sign-in sheets far exceeding APNA’s certificates of occupancy on sure days, used Pakistan-based billing employees, and laundered proceeds by way of shell corporations by writing checks disguised as “presents,” “dividends,” or coded entries like “medication,” or “laddu,” an Indian phrase for sweets, based on the indictment.
After a December 2025 federal search warrant was executed, Bibi, Siddiqui, and Ali tried to cowl their tracks by telling employees to get new telephones and delete knowledge, feds say.
The supply mentioned the so-called entrepreneurs every handle a gaggle of 30-50 sufferers.
“They hold them collectively. There’s a cultural factor. A Russian marketer will choose up Russians, Pakistani for Pakistanis, Chinese language for Chinese language,” the supply mentioned.
By means of his affiliation with a distinct group known as the American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee (APPAC), Siddiqui bought unprecedented entry to among the state’s high Democrats, together with internet hosting a fundraiser for New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James in June 2022 at a restaurant in Coney Island.
Mamdani has beforehand praised the APPAC for its robust assist, crediting his victory partly to their get-out-the-vote efforts. On the December assembly the place Siddiqui was current, Mamdani praised lawyer Ali Najmi — who has collaborated with APNA and Siddiqui on coverage initiatives and panels —calling him “his brother.”
Najmi, who just lately acquired an award from APNA Neighborhood Companies, shouldn’t be implicated within the rip-off.
Medicaid reimbursements to insurance coverage corporations — known as Managed Lengthy Time period Care suppliers or MLTCs —cap at $6,000 a month, per affected person, typically. Daycares typically are one side of such Medicaid scams which can lengthen into transportation corporations, pharmacies and residence healthcare companies that use the identical Medicaid numbers for funds and kickbacks.
For handing over their Medicaid card, seniors at APNA or their relations have been getting $500 a month in kickbacks for day care companies that have been by no means offered, based on the supply.
Shockingly, the indictment says the funds have been made even when enrollees weren’t within the US. The sources claimed many had even gone to stay in different nations whereas they or their relations collected Medicaid kickback cash.
“The affected person is in Pakistan, they’re in Morocco. They’re not even on this nation,” the supply claimed.
Relating to Bibi, 45, the supply claimed she is a “thug,” including: “She doesn’t even know the right way to write her identify. However she’s avenue good.”
In 2018, Bibi, additionally on Brooklyn Neighborhood Board 13, was a featured honoree at a dinner hosted by Brooklyn political org Bay Democrats, simply months after Siddiqui personally donated $3,000 to the group, The Submit found.
In a 2022 public testimony earlier than Metropolis Council, Bibi known as herself a “neighborhood activist” and griped, “we as a Pakistani American Neighborhood and as a Muslim American really feel alienated as a result of we as a neighborhood couldn’t get any sources.”
Three years later she was sitting subsequent to then-Mayor Eric Adams at a girls’s iftar dinner hosted at Gracie Mansion, an occasion sponsored by Siddiqui-owned Shazia Pharmacy in Coney Island.
The indictment makes no point out of pharmacies or different enterprise affiliated with Siddiqui, who lives in New Jersey however owns in depth property in Brooklyn.
APNA declined to remark to The Submit. Siddiqui and the opposite indictees weren’t capable of be reached for remark.
Federal regulation enforcement declined to remark, citing the continuing investigation.
APNA Grownup Day Care has a sister group, a nonprofit known as APNA Neighborhood Companies, additionally centered on aged and immigrant assist. The 2 share management groups with Siddiqui listed because the Board Chair and co-founder on their web site.
They function out of the identical amenities and it seems Siddiqui used his affiliation with the nonprofit to cowl his alleged unlawful actions.
In February, the federal authorities awarded a $530,000 grant to APNA Neighborhood Companies, funding backed by New York’s Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Two weeks in the past, APNA Neighborhood Companies boss Erum Halif – who co-founded the daycare however shifted over to the nonprofit – was invited to a picnic at Gracie Mansion with Mayor Mamdani, the place she shared beaming movies on social media hanging with the Democratic Socialist chief.
Halif informed The Submit she had not been concerned with the SADC for a number of years and had no information of its operations. She shouldn’t be named within the indictment.
In a bombshell report earlier this yr The Submit visited over a dozen SADCs in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens to seek out many have been practically empty at peak hours.
Most purchasers appeared wholesome and energetic with out indicators of “continual incapacity” or mobility points requiring “nursing residence degree of care” as wanted to qualify for the taxpayer-funded service. A number of amenities have been caught serving to-go lunches in strict violation of Medicaid guidelines.
A Medicaid fraud case revealed final June uncovered $68 million was being stolen from taxpayers in a scheme involving two SADCs in Brooklyn. Proprietor Zakia Khan’s racket paid kickbacks and bribes to entrepreneurs for referring Medicaid recipients to her SADCs from 2017 onward.
The supply informed The Submit that in an effort to hold getting kickbacks, a lot of Khan’s former “sufferers” moved over to APNA after that operation bought busted — a migration that ought to have raised flags with fraud detection outfits at insurance coverage corporations, however didn’t.
“The sufferers known as the insurance coverage corporations —no questions requested — ‘I need to change to APNA daycare,’” the supply claimed.
In February, two Queens males, Inwoo Kim, 42, and Daniel Lee, 56, have been charged with a close to an identical fraud, the place they allegedly ripped off $120 million from Medicaid in a decade-long scheme that concerned two SDACs in Flushing, based on feds.
New York spends probably the most Medicaid cash per affected person in comparison with some other state, and 77 p.c greater than the nationwide common.
“There’s zero oversight. The fraud won’t ever cease as a result of they don’t need it to cease. The MLTCs are funding the politicians as a result of that’s how they generate profits. They need increasingly sufferers enrolled. They’re the rationale this fraud has unfold so quick,” the supply alleged.
“How are the politicians and the insurance coverage corporations going to manage the fraud when they’re a part of the fraud?” the supply requested.
