Inside a strip-center office in Crystal Lake, Illinois, thousands of pieces of mail sat unopened, most of it from Blue Cross Blue Shield entities, while no employees were ever found on site. The office belongs to Niyraa LLC, and the door has been left unlocked with a sign inviting visitors to simply drop off more mail.
The situation came into focus after Katie Duda and her mother walked into the unlocked Niyraa LLC office and found nobody there, according to CBS News Chicago. Duda told the station she had never heard of Niyraa LLC until she spotted a $500 lab test billed under the company's name on an explanation-of-benefits letter from her insurer. As of Wednesday, the office still had that unlocked door and the handwritten invitation for people to leave mail behind, the station reported.
CBS News Chicago said it visited the office five times over several months, documenting clean lab equipment alongside unopened vials and supplies, even as the pile of mail grew. At one point, unopened letters were stuffed into black and white garbage bags in the back of the office, the station reported, and after an unidentified person removed those bags, more mail simply kept arriving.
A Name on the License, But No One Home
Mohammed I. Quadri is named on Niyraa LLC's lab signage and its current lab certifications, per the station's reporting. CBS News Chicago said it could not reach Quadri, and he did not appear at the office during an attempted weekday visit. The mall's owner told the station he had not seen Quadri in months, even though Quadri continues to pay rent on the medical office space.
Federal registries show a Niyraa LLC organization tied to the same address, listed under National Provider Identifier 1881351021 at 741 S. McHenry Ave., Suite E, according to the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System. A separate laboratory directory, LabProspects, lists Niyraa LLC under CLIA number 14D2244072 at the same Crystal Lake ZIP code. Neither listing establishes whether any lab testing or billing tied to the address was accurate.
Brittany Serby, who owns a nearby functional wellness clinic, said she has never seen Quadri in person. The same CBS News Chicago report quotes her saying she is concerned that no one appears to be stopping what is happening at the office.
Fraud Examiner Raises Phantom Billing Concerns
James Scordo, a certified fraud examiner and forensic accountant, told the station he believes the office appears to be a front for a fraud scheme, and that the alleged scheme could involve phantom billing — a practice in which Blue Cross Blue Shield would be paying Quadri for services patients never actually received. Scordo said each unopened envelope could represent a potential victim, and warned that if lab tests were never conducted, personal information tied to those tests could be compromised.
Scordo also said unperformed lab tests could distort medical records and affect a patient's future access to insurance. The station's report notes that patients may not even realize their insurer is being billed for services they never received, since the paperwork often never reaches them in a form they'd recognize as suspicious.
Federal Agencies Now Watching the Mail
CBS News Chicago said it contacted Crystal Lake police, the FBI and U.S. Postal Service inspectors about the situation. The Postal Service's inspector general is now investigating the mail pileup, though the station reported the office had gone many months without any apparent steps being taken to protect that mail. The FBI, meanwhile, has alerted local law enforcement and sanitary crews about conditions at the site, according to the same report.
Blue Cross Blue Shield told the station it could not comment on its relationships with individual providers, leaving open the question of what ties, if any, the insurer maintains with Niyraa LLC. The unopened mail itself, piling up in a space with no staff and an open door, could expose people's personal information, the station noted — a risk that remains unresolved as the federal inquiry continues.
