A Pakistani man who fled overseas and became a fugitive from the law after allegedly defrauding the United States government of $290 million has been arrested in Serbia.
Anosh Ahmed came to the United States from Pakistan at age 13 when U.S. officials approved his family for refugee status. He repaid America’s kindness by allegedly stealing roughly $290 million from taxpayers via a fraudulent COVID testing scheme.
Ahmed, a medical doctor, was indicted for the COVID fraud in 2024 and fled the country, first to the United Arab Emirates, then to other places, and ultimately to Serbia, where he was finally arrested for extradition to the United States.
Ahmed was taken into custody in Serbia on November 30, and last week the United States government requested his extradition, according to WBBM-TV in Chicago.
The erstwhile fugitive filed a request with authorities in Serbia to release him to a local hotel, but the request was denied and he is being held in jail until he can be extradited to the United States.
He is also accused of participating in a purported $15 million embezzlement scheme while he was entrusted with role of chief financial officer at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital.
The indictment referring to that scheme says that Ahmed and alleged fellow conspirators Heather Bergdahl and Sameer Suhail embezzled money from the hospital by creating fake accounts in the names of legitimate hospital vendors and billing the hospital, which then deposited payments into the accounts for the fake bills. The hospital eventually deposited as much as $15 million in these accounts to pay for services that were never actually provided. The three were hit with multiple charges of embezzlement, wire fraud, money laundering, and other charges.
After parting ways with Loretto Hospital in 2021, Ahmed moved to Texas, where he suddenly had the capital to become a multimillion-dollar real estate investor and dealer, according to Block Club Chicago.
He fled to Dubai in 2023 after the indictments began rolling in for the COVID-19 scam.
Federal officials have moved to seize Ahmed’s $50.5 million bank account, as well as another $42.3 million in securities and interests, according to court records, Block Club Chicago reported. “They also seized a 2020 Rolls-Royce Phantom, a 2022 Rolls-Royce Ghost, a 2021 Mercedes-Benz G-Class, a 2020 Lamborghini Huracan and four properties in Houston,” the site added.
Ahmed has claimed to manage $1.5 billion in assets with a company named the Private Family Office of Anosh Ahmed, which supposedly has offices in Dubai, London, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States.
His arrest comes as migrants from Somalia and other African countries have been caught stealing billions of U.S. tax dollars in fraudulent schemes, mostly involving Medicaid, Medicare, and other welfare programs. California and Minnesota have lost billions in fraud to “refugees” who repaid America’s generosity by bleeding Democrat-led states dry.
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