4 charged in $3.5M COVID test kickback conspiracy, feds say

Four people have been accused of running a kickback conspiracy involving COVID-19 testing that defrauded federal health insurance programs, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced Wednesday.

Abid Syed, 45, of East Hanover, Tariq Din, 55, of Saddle River, David Weathers, 59, of the Bronx, New York, and Muhammed Aurangzeb, 45, of Robbinsville were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the office said.

From April 2021 to April 2022, Syed and Din operated and controlled Metpath Laboratories, a clinical laboratory located in Parsippany that conducted testing to detect the presence of COVID-19 in samples obtained from patients, federal prosecutors said. Through the company, Syed and Din allegedly paid kickbacks to marketers, including Weathers and Aurangzeb, for referrals of COVID-19 test samples to Metpath. Weathers and Aurangzeb were each paid $5 to $30 per referral, officials accused.

They tried to make the payments appear to be for legitimate business expenses with one example being Syed altering the amount of the kickback payment to make it appear as if the marketer was a consultant for Metpath with legitimate business expenses, investigators said. In another instance, Weathers company, MedtechCares Inc., issued invoices to Metpath to make it appear as though the kickback payments from Metpath were legitimate business expenses, when in fact the payments were entirely for the referrals, the accusation details.

Metpath received more than $3.5 million in insurance reimbursements from federal health insurance programs for COVID-19 test samples referred by Weathers and Aurangzeb, the office said.

Weathers and Aurangzeb had their first appearances Wednesday via videoconference before a federal judge, officials said. Aurangzeb was released on $100,000 unsecured bond and Weathers consented to detention. Syed and Din were charged on April 11, 2022.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.