PJ police arrested an Indian man at Faro airport recently accused of defrauding U.S. health programme Medicare of millions. But it now transpires that the request may not be ‘kosher’.
The arrested man – a 39-year-old working as a Glovo food delivery driver – is contesting the extradition order, signed by United States law enforcement, and may well be successful. Lawyer Pedro Pestana says the mere fact that Syed Abedi, 39, has a child born in Portugal could be enough to block extradition – along with the fact that United States authorities “have not supplied any form of proof of the defendant having committed the crimes” of which he is accused – and which he also denies.
For now, father-of-four Abedi is languishing in preventive custody while the legal niceties are thrashed out.
According to U.S. authorities: “In 2023, Syed Abedi and his wife committed fraud against Medicare, a health benefits programme, by wrongfully billing for COVID-19 test kits that were never supplied or requested by Medicare beneficiaries.”
The U.S. accusation claims that Abedi purchased a testing laboratory in Texas, and it was through this that he carried out his ‘millionaire fraud’.
“Acting through the company, Abedi and his wife, presented approximately 370,000 claims for reimbursement totalling around 46 million dollars (equivalent to 39 million euros).”
Medicare paid the company approximately 31 million dollars for the reimbursement claims (roughly 26 million euros), Correia da Manhã explains – saying “Syed received thousands of dollars into his personal accounts, but now there is no trace of them”.
This garbled story is equally confused by the fact that the U.S. extradition order is just for Syed, and not for his wife (who ostensibly co-authored the scam).
As Mr Abedi’s lawyer explains, his client is denying everything – believing that he may be a victim of identity theft, or simply poor investigative work.
source : Correio da Manhã
