Federal authorities have charged eight people in Brooklyn with running an alleged $38 million Medicaid fraud scheme through two adult daycare centers that prosecutors say billed taxpayers for services never provided.
The indictment, unsealed this week, targets APNA Adult Daycare and Ashiana Social Adult Daycare, both in Coney Island. Prosecutors allege that from 2019 through December 2025, the defendants paid cash kickbacks to Medicaid recipients and their families to enroll at the centers, even though many participants rarely attended or never showed up.
Among those arrested Monday was Pervez Siddiqui, 78, a longtime figure in Brooklyn’s Pakistani-American community and a member of Brooklyn Community Board 13. Also charged was Shazia Bibi, also known as Shazia Wattoo, a former member of the same board, writes The New York Post.
According to prosecutors, recruiters were paid to find Medicaid recipients and steer them into the programs. The centers then billed New York Medicaid as if those participants had received services.
A source with knowledge of the investigation told The Post that the recruitment this way: “Marketers are going around looking for the Medicaid card. They stop people on the street, at bus stops. They go into doctor’s offices. They go into NYCHA [government housing] where they know people are low income. They ask, ‘do you have a Medicaid card?’”
The same source said recruitment often followed ethnic lines: “They keep them together. There’s a cultural element. A Russian marketer will pick up Russians, Pakistani for Pakistanis, Chinese for Chinese.”
Prosecutors say the operators concealed the fraud with fake attendance records, some showing more people than the centers could legally hold. Billing was handled by staff in Pakistan, while proceeds were routed through shell companies using checks labeled as “gifts,” “dividends,” or coded references such as “medicine” or “laddu.”
Siddiqui, who lives in New Jersey and owns property in Brooklyn, also owns about 15 pharmacies in New Jersey. He has long been active in local Democratic circles and has made substantial campaign contributions, including more than $10,000 to some candidates.
Through the American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee, Siddiqui hosted a June 2022 fundraiser for New York Attorney General Letitia James at a Coney Island restaurant. He was also present at a small December 2025 meeting between then-mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and APPAC members.
The case is part of a broader wave of Medicaid and welfare-fraud allegations involving adult daycare, transportation, and healthcare programs across the country. In Minnesota, a January report detailed scrutiny of the state’s nonemergency medical transportation program, where critics alleged companies billed Medicaid for rides that were never provided. That report described the transportation program as a billing backbone for broader schemes involving daycare centers, adult care programs, and healthcare entities.
The Brooklyn case also follows other recent federal prosecutions involving alleged adult daycare fraud schemes in New York City, including a $68 million case in Brooklyn last year and a $120 million case in Queens earlier this year.
Together, the cases point to a recurring problem in taxpayer-funded healthcare programs: large public benefit systems, weak verification, aggressive recruiting, and political connections can create openings for fraud on a massive scale.
[Read More: Democrats Won’t Even Root For America]
