Illinois lab boss charged over alleged $66.2 million fake COVID test scheme
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The gist
Rajesh Patel of Illinois was charged with wire fraud over at least 380,000 fictitious PCR tests.
The case follows a separate $227 million Medicare fraud plea, spotlighting pandemic test billing.
Background
Rajesh Patel is a lab owner from Schaumburg, Illinois, charged with five counts of wire fraud over an alleged $66.2 million scheme involving at least 380,000 fictitious PCR (polymerase chain reaction) COVID-19 tests. The alleged offences took place between May 2021 and April 2022, when Illinois was enduring a devastating wave of infections. The charge comes as federal prosecutors also close out a separate case: Syed Murtuza Kablazada, a 36-year-old Indian national and Illinois resident, pleaded guilty to two counts of healthcare fraud over a $227 million Medicare scheme.
How it unfolded
- May 2021 – Apr 2022The period of Patel's alleged offences, when Illinois recorded 207,203 new confirmed and probable COVID cases in the week ending January 14, 2022, with 738 deaths.
- Jan 2023A six-month scheme began in which Syed Murtuza Kablazada and co-conspirators acquired three Chicago-area labs that submitted Medicare claims for fake COVID-19 test results.
- recentlyKablazada pleaded guilty to two counts of healthcare fraud over a scheme to defraud Medicare of $227 million, the DOJ announced last Friday.
- Oct 21, 2026Rajesh Patel of Schaumburg, Illinois, was charged with five counts of wire fraud over an alleged $66.2 million scheme involving at least 380,000 fictitious PCR tests.
- Oct 29, 2026A UK report put SARS-CoV-2 PCR positivity in English hospital settings at a rolling 7-day rate of 8.3%, with 1,847 COVID-19 cases identified in week 43, down from 2,151.
- Nov 3, 2026US COVID-19 test positivity decreased 9%, from 3.8% to 3.5%, while wastewater SARS-CoV-2 concentration fell 8% per WastewaterSCAN but rose 11% per the CDC.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- The DOJ said Kablazada used Medicare beneficiary data bought from an unscrupulous broker in Pakistan to bill the government for COVID-19 testing kits never provided to patients.
- Official
- Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said Patel allegedly exploited the emergency by fabricating hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests and then billing the taxpayer for it.
- Prosecutors
- Prosecutors alleged that of $227 million in claims submitted in the Kablazada case, CMS paid out roughly $136 million, and that Patel's lab received about $44.1 million from a federal programme for free testing of uninsured Americans, with Patel personally receiving around $28 million.
Still unverified
The UK surveillance report notes that because testing and reporting schedules differ between pathogens, denominators vary and estimates for the most recent week may be subject to revision; the CDC reports high wastewater viral activity levels in Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas and Maryland, though data are limited in the latter two states.