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Rehan “Ray” Zuberi, 45, of Boonton Township, the owner of Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates (DIA) of Hackensack, and his accomplices also submitted $8 million in bogus Medicaid applications while avoiding income and franchise taxes, Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said.
He and his wife, 38-year-old Humara Paracha, the president of DIA, also haven’t paid taxes to the state since 2009 despite making millions of dollars, authorities said today, in announcing the results of an investigation dubbed “Operation RayScam.”
More than a dozen search warrants were executed Tuesday by more than 100 investigators at radiology centers controlled by Zuberi in Hackensack, Englewood, Jersey City and elsewhere, as well as at Zuberi’s 9,000-square-foot mansion, his father’s Middlesex County home and another private residence, Hoffman said.
Among those arrested were Zuberi and Paracha, as CLIFFVIEW PILOT originally reported. He remained held on $1 million bail and she on $300,000 bail.
Authorities seized more than more than $100,000 cash from Zuberi, as well as high-end Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other sports car, and placed liens on Zuberi’s home and imaging equipment.
“This type of criminal activity impacts not just the agencies defrauded,” Hoffman said, “but also law-abiding, taxpaying residents of New Jersey who are forced to cover the costs of the fraud.”
“Kickbacks are a bane of the insurance market,” Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Ronald Chillemi added. “Medical practitioners should base their decisions solely on their patients’ medical needs.”
DIA, which Zuberi owns and uses to manage his business, is “an umbrella corporation that manages numerous subsidiary diagnostic imaging facilities” in North and Central Jersey, Hoffman said.
Under Zuberi’s direction, the organization paid more than $300,000 in illegal kickbacks to multiple medical practitioners, including chiropractors and physicians, in return for patient referrals to DIA testing centers for expensive diagnostic tests (e.g. MRIs and PET scans), authorities said during a news conference in Newark this morning.
They used checks from shell corporations they created, as well as gift cards/certificates, Hoffman said.
“The Zuberi enterprise also disguised the payment of kickbacks by providing doctors services (e.g. patient transportation),” he said.
The defendants also made “numerous structured cash withdrawals to circumvent the statutory reporting requirements that are triggered by large cash withdrawals,” the attorney general said.
Owner-operators arrested along with Zuberi and Paracha were:
- Baber “Bob” Eskar, 49, of Pompton Lakes, desribed as Zuberi’s close associate and chief operating officer of DIA;
- Rohit Gupta, 38, of Edison, President of American Imaging of Edison and owner of Medimax, a medical billing company that processed DIA’s insurance claims;
- Faisal Paracha, 30, of Fords, Rehan Zuberi’s brother-in-law, and part owner/manager of American Imaging of West Orange;
Managers/officers of Zuberi-related companies who were arrested:
- Nawab Zuberi, 73, of Boonton, Rehan Zuberi’s father and officer/director of DIA;
- Salman Siddiqui, 37, of Lake Hopatcong, Rehan Zuberi’s brother-in law, and office manager of American Imaging of Montville;
- Felix Clarin, 44, of Florham Park, manager of American Imaging of Jersey City;
- Judith DeLeon, 50, of Bloomfield, manager of American Imaging of Hackensack;
- Natividad Urena, 31, of Clifton, manager of American Imaging of Union City.
Abid Syed, 37, of East Hanover, also was charged as the alleged financial controller of Zuberi’s alleged enterprise.
Thomas Grecco, 25, of Clifton, who worked in the accounting department of American Imaging of Hackensack, and Jose Lopez, 51,of Passaic, an employee of the organization, were charged for their alleged role in the scheme.
Zuberi and Paracha are each charged with racketeering, money laundering, corporate misconduct, bribery, Medicaid fraud and income tax evasion.
Zuberi’s brothers-in-law, Rohit Bupta and Faisal Paracha, are charged with racketeering, bribery, corporate misconduct and tampering with records, among other offenses.
His father, Nawab Zuberi, is charged with corporate misconduct, falsifying records and tax evasion.
Courtesy: NJ ATTORNEY GENERAL
Zuberi served 10 months in state prison in the early 2000s after pleading guilty to his role in a large Medicaid fraud money laundering scheme. As part of the scheme, ringleaders paid kickbacks to Zuberi to refer blood specimens to a clinic he operated in Clifton for bogus and expensive tests. The clinics’ patients were Medicaid recipients who were unaware that their blood was being subjected to the unnecessary tests.
Zuberi was ordered to pay $10,000 in fines and more than $50,000 in restitution and was prohibited from participating in Medicaid. Three years ago, he was reinstated, records show.
After he was released from prison, Zuberi “used nominees to submit more than a dozen fraudulent applications for provider status to the Medicaid program and more than 30 fraudulent licensing applications to the Department of Health,” Hoffman said this morning.
In doing so, they hid the fact that he was an owner from the Medicaid program and the Department of Health.
“By concealing his ownership of the facilities, Zuberi and others in the organization were allegedly able to fraudulently obtain provider status and submit more than 30,000 claims to Medicaid and thousands more to other healthcare insurance companies,” Hoffman said.
The search warrants were executed by more than 100 investigators from the following agencies: Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Division of Criminal Justice, Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation, Department of Banking and Insurance, Medicaid Fraud Division of the Office of the State Comptroller, Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory.
Deputy Attorney General Christopher Ruzich and Detectives Anthony Correll and Kevin Gannon coordinated the investigation with assistance from Detectives Jason Volpe and Yevgeny Gershman, Hoffman said. They worked with Special Agent William Makar from the Division of Taxation, he said.
Analysts Terri Drumm and Dalisha Carmichael of the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor assisted in the investigation.
Search warrants were executed at:
1. Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates/Medical & Molecular Imaging – 155 State Street, Hackensack;
2. Medical & Molecular Imaging/American Imaging of Englewood – 177 North Dean Avenue, Suite 202, Englewood;
3. American Imaging of Edison/Diagnostic Imaging Group of Edison – 1921 Oak Tree Road, Suite 100, Edison;
4. American Imaging of Jersey City/Open MRI, An American Imaging Affiliate – 547 Summit Avenue, Jersey City;
5. American Imaging of Jersey City – 550 Summit Avenue, Jersey City;
6. Garden State Imaging/American Imaging of Elizabeth – 315 Elmora Avenue, Second Floor, Elizabeth;
7. American Imaging Center of West Orange – 61 Main Street, Suite A, West Orange;
8. Medical & Molecular Imaging/Medical Imaging of Wayne – 516 Hamburg Turnpike, Suites 6 To 8, Wayne;
9. American Imaging of Montville/The Imaging Center of Montville – 350 Main Road, Suite 100, Montville;
10. American Imaging of Union City – 120-152 48th Street, Union City,;
11. Medimax Group, 22 Meridian Road, Suites 2 & 7, Edison;
12. Residence of Rehan Zuberi (A/K/A Ray Zuberi), Old Timber Trail, Boonton;
13. Residence of Faisal Paracha, De Grasse Street, Fords;
14. Residence of Baber Eskar, Ridge Drive, Pompton Lakes.
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