The owner of Sublime Medical Transportation in Schenectady County, New York was recently sentenced to three to nine years in state prison for orchestrating a large Medicaid fraud scheme. Muhammed Adnan Saeed netted over $700,000, along with more than $60,000 in unemployment benefits to which he was not entitled.
Between 2019 and 2023, Saeed routinely submitted false claims to Medicaid, billed for individual rides when clients were actually being transported in groups, and inflated mileage to increase reimbursements. An investigation revealed that nearly 85% of the company’s Medicaid claims – over 2,500 trips – were either fabricated or unauthorized. Saeed also paid cash kickbacks to Medicaid recipients, who were often struggling with addiction, to persuade them to use his services. Saeed inflated his profits by transporting these patients from Schenectady to Amsterdam rather than down the street to a Schenectady clinic. At the same time, he illegally collected unemployment while still earning $90,000 working as a driver for his own business.
New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli called the operation a “systemic fraud” that stole from both the taxpayers and the state’s most vulnerable populations. Saeed was ordered to repay $766,600 in restitution.
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