Federal agents arrested Pervez Siddiqui, a 78-year-old Pakistani-American businessman and Brooklyn Community Board 13 member, along with seven co-conspirators on Monday. The charges: running a sprawling Medicaid kickback and false-billing operation through two social adult day care centers in Brooklyn that allegedly submitted $38 million in fraudulent claims for services that were never provided.
The unsealed federal indictment names Siddiqui, Shazia Bibi (also known as Shazia Wattoo, age 45), Abdul Aziz, Shair Ali, Zebun Ahmed, Josna Begum, Saira Khatoon, and Atia Shahnaz. The alleged scheme ran from 2019 through December 2025 and centered on two facilities, APNA Adult Daycare and Ashiana Social Adult Daycare, both in Brooklyn.
What makes this case more than a garden-variety Medicaid bust is who Siddiqui and Bibi were rubbing elbows with while the alleged fraud was underway. Both cultivated deep relationships with some of New York's most prominent Democrats, hosting fundraisers, collecting honors, scoring meetings, and pulling down a half-million-dollar federal grant, all while allegedly bilking taxpayers through a system with, as one source close to the investigation put it, "zero oversight."
The indictment, as the New York Post reported, lays out a straightforward grift. The gang allegedly paid cash bribes directly to New York Medicaid recipients to enroll at APNA or Ashiana, even though most never set foot in either facility. Recruiters received kickbacks for referring patients. The centers then submitted $38 million in fraudulent claims to New York Medicaid for services never rendered.
To keep up appearances, the defendants allegedly created fake sign-in sheets that on certain days showed patient counts far exceeding APNA's certificate of occupancy. Billing was handled by staff based in Pakistan. Proceeds were laundered through shell companies using checks disguised as "gifts," "dividends," or coded entries like "medicine" and "laddu", an Indian word for sweets.
A source with knowledge of the investigation described how the recruitment pipeline worked:
"Marketers are going around looking for the Medicaid card. They stop people on the street, at bus stops. They go into doctors' 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 explained that the operation was organized along ethnic lines: "They keep them together. There's a cultural element. A Russian marketer will pick up Russians, Pakistani for Pakistanis, Chinese for Chinese." Each marketer managed 30 to 50 patients. Seniors or their family members allegedly received $500 a month in kickbacks.
Some enrollees were not even in the United States. "The patient is in Pakistan, they're in Morocco. They're not even in this country," the source said. Yet the Medicaid payments kept flowing.
Siddiqui was no back-alley operator. He owns approximately 15 pharmacies in New Jersey, holds extensive property in Brooklyn, and served as board chair and co-founder of APNA Community Services, a nonprofit sister organization to the adult day care that shares the same facilities and leadership team. He was also affiliated with the American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee, known as APPAC.
Those credentials bought access. In 2018, Siddiqui personally donated $3,000 to the Bay Democrats, a Brooklyn political organization. Just months later, Bibi, his alleged co-conspirator, was a featured honoree at a Bay Democrats dinner. Records show Siddiqui was a regular donor to Democratic campaigns, sometimes giving over $10,000 per donation.
In June 2022, Siddiqui hosted a fundraiser for New York Attorney General Letitia James at a Coney Island restaurant. That same year, Bibi testified before the New York City Council, presenting herself as a community activist and telling lawmakers: "we as a Pakistani American Community and as a Muslim American feel alienated because we as a community could not get any resources." Meanwhile, the alleged $38 million fraud was well into its fourth year.
The political access didn't stop at the state level. Bibi sat next to then-Mayor Eric Adams at a women's iftar dinner held at Gracie Mansion, an event sponsored by Siddiqui's Coney Island pharmacy. Adams is not named in the indictment and is not accused of wrongdoing.
As recently as December 2025, the same month federal agents executed a search warrant on the day care facilities, Siddiqui scored a sit-down with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani through his APPAC ties. Photos obtained by the Post show the two together. At that meeting, Mamdani praised lawyer Ali Najmi, who has collaborated with APNA on policy initiatives, calling him "his brother." Najmi is explicitly not implicated in the fraud.
Mamdani had previously praised APPAC for strong get-out-the-vote support, crediting the group's efforts with his mayoral victory. The mayor-elect, who already faces mounting ethics questions, is not named in the indictment.
Perhaps the most striking detail in the timeline: in February, the federal government awarded a $530,000 grant to APNA Community Services, backed by U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. That grant came after federal agents had already executed a search warrant at the related day care facilities in December 2025. Neither senator is named in the indictment or accused of wrongdoing.
Erum Halif, described as the boss of APNA Community Services and a co-founder of the day care who shifted to the nonprofit side, told the Post she had not been involved with the adult day care for several years and had no knowledge of its operations. Halif is not named in the indictment. But just two weeks before the arrests, she attended a picnic at Gracie Mansion with Mamdani and shared videos on social media from the event.
The web of relationships raises a basic question that New York voters deserve answered: how did an organization under active federal investigation continue to collect taxpayer-funded grants and enjoy high-level political access? The pattern of alleged cover-ups surrounding Mamdani's circle only deepens the concern.
The indictment describes conduct that went beyond the billing fraud itself. After federal agents executed the December 2025 search warrant, Bibi, Siddiqui, and Ali allegedly told staff to get new phones and delete data, an apparent effort to destroy evidence.
A source familiar with the case characterized Bibi bluntly: "She doesn't even know how to write her name. But she's street-smart." Federal law enforcement declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. APNA also declined to comment.
This case is not an isolated episode. New York's social adult day care sector has become a magnet for large-scale Medicaid fraud. Last June, a separate case exposed Zakia Khan, the owner of two Brooklyn SADCs, in an alleged $68 million Medicaid scheme that reportedly ran from 2017 onward. A source told the Post that after Khan's operation was busted, her former "patients" migrated to APNA.
In February, a Queens case dwarfed even those numbers. Inwoo Kim, 42, and Daniel Lee, 56, were charged with allegedly defrauding Medicaid of nearly $120 million in a decade-long scheme involving two adult day care centers in Flushing.
Add the $38 million alleged in the Siddiqui case, and three Brooklyn and Queens fraud busts alone account for more than $226 million in alleged Medicaid theft. New York already spends 77% more Medicaid money per patient than the national average. The managed long-term care providers, the MLTCs, receive up to $6,000 per month per patient in Medicaid reimbursements.
A source close to the investigation offered a withering assessment of the system that enables the fraud:
"There is zero oversight. The fraud will never stop because they don't want it to stop. The MLTCs are funding the politicians because that's how they make money. They want more and more patients enrolled. They are the reason this fraud has spread so fast."
The same source posed a question that no one in Albany or City Hall seems eager to answer: "How are the politicians and the insurance companies going to control the fraud when they are part of the fraud?"
The Siddiqui indictment lands at a moment when federal authorities are already pressing New York City's leadership on questions of law enforcement cooperation and institutional accountability. The case exposes a familiar pattern: alleged fraudsters who embedded themselves in the political infrastructure of the very party that controls the levers of oversight.
Siddiqui donated to Democrats. He hosted their fundraisers. He sat on community boards. His co-defendant was honored at party dinners and testified before the City Council. His organization's nonprofit arm collected a six-figure federal grant backed by two sitting U.S. senators, months after federal agents raided the related facilities.
None of the politicians named in the reporting are accused of wrongdoing. But the question isn't whether they committed crimes. It's whether the political ecosystem they built, one fueled by donations, endorsements, and community-group access, created the conditions in which a $38 million fraud could run for six years without anyone in power noticing or caring. The federal pressure now bearing down on Mamdani's administration from multiple directions suggests Washington has noticed, even if Albany hasn't.
New York's Medicaid system is hemorrhaging money. The adult day care sector, designed to help vulnerable seniors, has become a cash machine for alleged con artists who game enrollment, fabricate attendance, and bill taxpayers for phantom services delivered to people who may be on another continent. The politicians who preside over this system accept the donations, pose for the photos, and hand out the grants.
When the indictments come, they say they had no idea. That's the part taxpayers are supposed to believe.
