The day after Pervez Siddiqui’s grownup day care heart was raided by the FBI final 12 months, the pharmacist headed to a fundraiser for Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the residence of the highest adviser on Medicaid affairs within the Pakistani-American neighborhood.
Ijaz Ahmad, 50, a Pakistani-American heart specialist and healthcare entrepreneur with a sprawling residence in Nassau County, advises his fellow countrymen on establishing neighborhood healthcare services, which rake in tens of thousands and thousands in Medicaid money.
He additionally introduces them to the town’s strongest lawmakers at his 10,000 sq. foot residence in Previous Westbury, in response to a supply locally.
Ahmad’s proximity to Siddiqui — who now stands accused of taking part in an element in an alleged $38 million fraud, and one other member of the neighborhood, Zakia Khan, who has been convicted of $68 million Medicaid fraud — and heavyweight Democratic politicians has raised some eyebrows.
Not least as Ahmad personally donated $16,000 between 2021 and 2025 to embattled New York State Lawyer Normal Letitia James, who earlier this month had federal funding to the state’s Medicaid Fraud Management Unit (MFCU) suspended over lax enforcement and a lack of prosecutions.
His American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee (APPAC) Political Motion Committee additionally raised greater than $306,000 within the final 12 months for Democratic candidates, filings present, and has donated to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. It has additionally been a major donor to New York governor Kathy Hochul.
In December, after Mamdani’s historic victory, Ahmad organized a fundraiser for the brand new mayor’s transition workforce via APPAC, which he based in 2018 to advertise South Asian and Muslim political candidates and fight anti-Muslim rhetoric.
For many who have adopted Ahmad’s profession, the political occasions are methods to extend his profile locally.
“He has no character and he does the whole lot to get seen. He makes use of his property and five-star inns to host these political occasions,” claimed one supply who didn’t wish to be recognized.
“He’s like Mickey Mouse. He’s all over the place.”
Federal disclosures present that APPAC additionally employed a Washington, DC lobbying agency to assist their work with political candidates in each the US and Pakistan.
APPAC and Ahmad each didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Put up. Neither celebration has been accused of any wrongdoing.
Final month Siddiqui, a member of APPAC’s nationwide board of administrators, was arrested together with seven alleged co-conspirators over the alleged $38 million Medicaid rip-off in Brooklyn. Feds allege they ran a large-scale kickback and false-billing scheme via two social grownup day care facilities: APNA Grownup Daycare and Ashiana Social Grownup Daycare.
The rip-off, which allegedly ran from 2019 to December 2025, noticed operators bribe seniors in change for his or her Medicaid info, then ship inflated payments to the state for companies that had been by no means carried out, in response to prosecutors.
They allege seniors had been signed up for daycares they not often or by no means attended, then obtained a reduce of the Medicaid fee. Siddiqui and his co-defendants have but to enter pleas within the case.
New York Metropolis alone has 375 social grownup day care services. They supply meals, social actions and different companies, usually duplicating companies provided at state-run senior facilities, however via non-public corporations.
Medicaid paid grownup daycare suppliers $3.35 billion throughout the nation in 2024, and almost 20 p.c of that money went to the facilities in New York, in response to public filings.
Though Siddiqui’s alleged fraud rocked the Medicaid neighborhood, it was small compared to a $68 million con involving different members of the Pakistani-American neighborhood.
Final 12 months, Khan pleaded responsible to conspiring to defraud Medicaid at quite a few services she had run in Brooklyn. She has but to be sentenced.
In the meantime, Ahmad hosts high-level conferences between American and Pakistani lawmakers at his residence.
In Could, the Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, attended Ahmad’s mansion, alongside a full retinue of Pakistani diplomats, together with the ambassador to the US. The occasion was deemed of such nice significance it was featured on the nation’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs web site.
“On the blessed event of Eid, I had the distinct honor of internet hosting His Excellency Senator Ishaq Dar, Deputy Prime Minister and Overseas Minister of Pakistan, at my residence for a rare night of dialogue, engagement, and patriotism,” Ahmad wrote on Fb, alongside images of the statesman surrounded by different dignitaries.
Dar is concurrently performing as Pakistan’s Minister of Overseas Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister.
Though such conferences contain political figures, APPAC just isn’t registered as a international agent of Pakistan, and is due to this fact not allowed to supervise any lobbying on behalf of the nation or its politicians, so their occasions are purely social affairs.
The post-election occasion for Mamdani, who Ahmad and his fellow APPAC members had supported since his first run for State Meeting in 2020, ended up elevating almost $263,000 from 70 friends for the mayor’s transition workforce.
Company, together with Siddiqui, every gave $3,700, incomes Ahmad and Hafeez coveted seats at Mamdani’s inauguration at Metropolis Corridor this January.
Ahmad has held related APPAC-sponsored occasions for New York governor Kathy Hochul, and his Fb web page reveals him posing with New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker and Biden.
In 2024, Hochul named Ahmad to the state’s Justice Heart Advisory Council, which helps the state “develop insurance policies and applications for individuals with particular wants,” in response to the announcement.
Ahmad donated $10,000 to the Pals for Kathy Hochul PAC in 2024 and 2025, in response to marketing campaign filings and in March, APPAC hosted an Iftar dinner that includes Hochul as a particular visitor.
“Talking on the event, Governor Hochul acknowledged the contributions of Muslim People and warranted that New York State will proceed to safeguard their rights whereas guaranteeing entry to alternatives in key sectors,” in response to an article in Urdu Information USA.
APPAC additionally just lately endorsed Mamdani’s radical socialist slate for final month’s Democratic primaries, together with Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier.
“Ijaz has made a profession of getting near politicians, maybe it’s his manner of conserving them onside,” charged one other supply, who works as a healthcare marketing consultant.
