An Indian national, Mohammed Asif, was recently indicted on charges of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit the same act, as he is set to appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle, according to an announcement by Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. Asif was arrested on April 10 while trying to leave the United States and is connected with American Labworks LLC, an Everett, Washington-based lab, allegedly involved in fraudulent billing practices to Medicare for unperformed COVID-19 tests and other respiratory illness tests.
The charges stem from an indictment that alleges Asif and unnamed co-conspirators schemed to bilk Medicare of nearly $9 million, of which Medicare paid out over $1.1 million. The saga unfolded with American Labworks, once listed as a legitimate Medical Test Site until its license expired in December 2023. It created claims data showing billing for Medicare upwards of $8.7 million from April 2024 to December 2024. Many complaints, more than 200 between June 2024 and March 2025, reported that Medicare was billed for tests that beneficiaries neither ordered nor received, with some of these alleged services dated after patients or the referring physicians were deceased.
According to the Justice Department's records, financial trails reveal Mohammed Asif had made substantial withdrawals from the company bank account he controlled, including one instance in May 2024, when he withdrew $260,000. After that, Asif, previously in the U.S. on a student visa, departed for India, only to return amidst the unraveling investigation in March 2025. With a hastily arranged arrest and subsequent indictment by a grand jury on April 23, Asif's operation appears to have been temporarily halted.
If convicted, the charges of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud have Asif facing a possible penalty of up to ten years in prison and fines up to $250,000. The investigation remains active, led by HHS-OIG and the FBI, with the prosecution handled by Assistant United States Attorney Philip Kopczynski.
