‘Lacks moral character’: Indian national jailed in US over medicare fraud; siphoned off $1.17 million

A 35-year-old Indian national has been sentenced to two years in a US federal prison for running a medicare fraud scheme that siphoned off more than $1 million through an Everett-based diagnostic laboratory. Mohammed Asif, owner of American Labworks LLC, was convicted in the US district court in Seattle for conspiracy to commit health care fraud, reported KOMO News.

Prosecutors said Asif and his associates billed Medicare for COVID-19 and respiratory illness tests that beneficiaries never received and that physicians never ordered. The lab submitted claims worth more than $8 million, of which Medicare paid over $1.1 million.


Judge James Robart, who ordered Asif to pay $1,174,813 in restitution, said the case involved money “siphoned out of the Medicare system that is designed to treat the elderly and the poor,” adding that Asif “lacks moral character as a knowing participant in the fraud.”

Investigators received more than 200 complaints between mid-2024 and 2025 from enrollees who were billed for tests they never underwent. In several instances, bills were submitted under the names of physicians who said they had no connection to the lab. Some claims were filed even after the patient or doctor had died, according to federal filings.

American Labworks was incorporated in October 2021 and dissolved in March 2025. Its testing licence had already expired in December 2023. Financial records showed Asif controlled the firm’s bank account and withdrew $260,000 in May 2024 before travelling to India. He returned to the US in March 2025, as investigators were closing in, and was arrested on April 10 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport while attempting to board an outbound flight. A grand jury indicted him later that month, and he pleaded guilty on September 4.

Federal officials said the fraud was part of a pattern of pandemic-era schemes targeting taxpayer-funded programmes.

Asif participated in a scheme to steal more than a million dollars from Medicare - funds that are meant to be used for important medical care,” US attorney Neil Floyd said. FBI Seattle field office chief W Mike Herrington noted, “In just a couple of years, his company billed Medicare millions of dollars for laboratory testing that never happened.”

Authorities said Asif, who was in the US on a student visa, is likely to be deported after completing his prison term. The investigation into his co-conspirators remains underway.