Parsippany Testing Lab Owners, 4 Others Turn Up Positive For COVID Fraud Scheme: Feds

PARSIPPANY, NJ — Six people linked to a Parsippany laboratory, including the owners, tested positive for a coronavirus fraud scheme, according to the Department of Justice. Conspirators connected to Metpath Laboratories tried defrauding Medicare using COVID-19 pathogen tests, federal authorities announced Thursday.

Abid Syed, Taquir Din, Tamer Mohamed, Tauquir Khan and Nisim Davydov were charged with conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits efforts to induce or reward the referral of business reimbursable by federal health care programs. The suspects schemed to defraud Medicare by paying illegal kickbacks and bribes of more than $250,000 for laboratory tests for COVID pathogen tests, according to the Department of Justice.

Syed and Din owned and controlled Metpath — headquartered at a Route 46 facility, where the business also administers tests. Metpath performed COVID diagnostic testing and billed Medicare, authorities said.

Khan, Mohamed, and Davydov were marketers who supplied thousands of diagnostic tests to Metpatch and received kickbacks and bribes from the owners for doing so, the Justice Department said. Metpath tried to conceal its kickback payments to marketers through shell companies that Rauf set up and controlled, according to authorities.

While Metpath is headquartered in Parsippany, they also test specimens from a facility in Clifton and another in Trenton, according to the company's website.

Correction: The defendants were charged by criminal complaint, not an indictment, as a previous version of the article stated.

Editor's note: One or more names have been deleted after charges were dismissed.