Chicago COVID-19 testing lab owner gets 7 years in prison for fraud scheme
The co-owner of a Chicago COVID-19 testing laboratory was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Wednesday for a fraud scheme in which in which his company provided fake negative results to people who had been tested and billed the federal government for the tests.
Zishan Alvi, 46, of Inverness, Illinois, pleaded guilty last fall to one count of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. imposed the sentence on Alvi on Wednesday, and also ordered him to pay more than $14.1 million in restitution.
Alvi also had to surrender more than $8 million cash and three vehicles, all of which were seized previously by law enforcement.
Alvi was indicted in March 2023, more than a year after the FBI raided the headquarters of his company, LabElite, in the Norwood Park neighborhood.
LabElite offered both PCR and rapid COVID-19 tests to consumers at storefronts locations beginning in late 2020.
In his plea deal with federal prosecutors, Alvi admitted that between February 2021 and February 2022, his company billed the federal government $14 million for more than 85,000 COVID-19 tests that were never processed.
LabElite also told people who had undergone COVID-19 tests that their results were negative even when their tests had not been processed. Some of those patients who were told they had tested negative got other tests at separate labs while waiting for results from LabElite, and learned they were, in fact, positive for COVID-19.
Alvi transferred the money LabElite got from the federal government from the company's bank account to his own personal accounts, and used some of the funds to buy luxury cars.
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