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East Patchogue resident Ibrahim Aksakal was sentenced at First District Court in Central Islip on Tuesday, March 8 to 27 months in prison for conspiring to commit health care and wire fraud in connection scheme that Aksakal operated in Suffolk County between 2017 and 2020.
Prosecutors said that the scheme involved pregnant Turkish women fraudulently entering the country and using tourist and business visas to give birth so that the children would obtain birthright citizenship and medical benefits.
US Attorney Breon Peace said that between January 2017 and September 2020, Aksakal and his co-conspirators advertised a birth tourism scheme on two Turkish-language Facebook pages.
The approximate $7,500 fee charged to each pregnant woman would include transportation, “insurance” to cover the costs of prenatal, delivery, and post-natal medical care, prosecutors said.
Aksakal and his co-conspirators also instructed the women to conceal their pregnancies.
The pregnant women stayed in one of seven “birth houses” that Aksakal maintained in Center Moriches, Dix Hills, East Northport, East Patchogue, Smithtown, and West Babylon, officials noted. As a result of the scheme, Medicaid disbursed more than $1 million in fraudulently obtained benefits.
As part of his sentence, Aksakal was also ordered to pay $1.039,732.63 in restitution and must forfeit $397,500.
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