Pervez Siddiqui, a Pakistani national who served as president of an adult day care facility in New York City, has been arrested for allegedly running a $38 million Medicaid fraud scheme. Federal prosecutors say he faked patient enrollments to collect fraudulent Medicaid payments — billing the program for care that was never provided.
Siddiqui was also a Democratic donor with connections to multiple NYC Democrats, including Zohran Mamdani, according to the New York Post. He was photographed with Mamdani shortly after Mamdani's election.
That photo matters less than what it represents. Mamdani is one of the loudest socialist voices in New York City politics — a prominent advocate for expanding government-funded healthcare who has argued Medicaid is chronically underfunded and needs more public money. His donor was allegedly pulling $38 million out of that same program.
The New York Post reported Siddiqui's connections extended beyond Mamdani to multiple NYC Democrats. What makes the specific mechanism worth examining: this wasn't a random fraudster who happened to write a check. He was a politically connected donor to the figures whose policy agenda centers on expanding the programs he was allegedly defrauding.
Every dollar Siddiqui allegedly stole was a dollar designated for actual patients — elderly New Yorkers who depend on day care and support services. The program wasn't underfunded. It was allegedly being drained.
Rep. Eli Crane weighed in directly: "Keep attacking the fraud. The integrity of these programs depends on it."
NYC Democrats who received donations from Siddiqui will face questions about whether they intend to return them. The more pointed question is whether any of them will address how a donor with this level of political access was allegedly running a large-scale fraud operation inside the programs they've made the center of their political identity.
Steal from the program. Donate to the politicians who expand the program. The program gets bigger. More to steal.
That's not a coincidence. That's a business model.
