Fugitive former Loretto Hospital executive Anosh Ahmed, who fled to Dubai before his indictment on massive fraud charges, has been arrested in Serbia and is awaiting possible extradition to stand trial in Chicago, federal prosecutors disclosed in a court filing Wednesday.
Ahmed, Loretto’s onetime chief financial officer, was indicted in 2024 on charges he stole more than $15 million from the small, West Side safety net facility in a phony billing scheme.
Last year, he was charged in a separate case alleging a massive $290 million fraud scheme that allegedly used stolen patient data to bill nearly a billion dollars worth of bogus COVID-19 tests for purportedly uninsured patients at the height of the pandemic.
By the time the first charges were filed, Ahmed had fled to Dubai, where he’s since waged a bizarre public relations campaign touting himself as, among other things, a Chicago-based entrepreneur determined to break the cycle of poverty by bringing high-tech jobs to the city’s historically underserved West Side.
Ahmed has been declared a fugitive. Meanwhile, a trial for two of his co-defendants in the COVID-19 fraud case had been set for June.
In a motion filed Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg revealed the U.S. was told on Nov. 30 that Ahmed had been arrested in Serbia pursuant to a “Red Notice,” which is a global alert seeking his arrest on a national warrant. A Serbian court later denied Ahmed’s petition to be released to a hotel in Belgrade and ordered he remain in custody, according to the filing.
Last week, the U.S. sent its package requesting Ahmed’s extradition to the U.S. to stand trial, which is pending, Mecklenburg said.
“The United States will advise the Court of any updates and may ask for a continuance of the trial date to serve the interests of trying all defendants together and preserving resources to avoid having to try the case twice,” she wrote.
A lawyer for Ahmed could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Loretto Hospital became a lightning rod of controversy during the coronavirus pandemic for administering vaccinations to connected insiders and paying millions in contracts to companies with close ties to facility administrators.
In 2021, following reporting by Block Club Chicago and WBEZ, Loretto admitted it had improperly vaccinated workers at Trump Tower in downtown Chicago and had also improperly given shots to Cook County judges at a time when the vaccines were still scarce.
Ahmed resigned from his position as chief financial officer in 2021 after the hospital’s board voted to terminate him.
Among those charged in the embezzlement case were former Loretto CEO George Miller; Heather Bergdahl, a friend of Ahmed’s from Houston whom he hired in 2020 to serve as Loretto’s chief transformation officer; and Sameer Suhail, 47, of Chicago, a doctor and medical supply company owner accused of serving as a front for millions of dollars in bogus payments by Loretto for invoices that were never fulfilled.
Miller, who left the hospital amid the fallout in 2022, is cooperating and is expected to plead guilty.
Suhail was also believed to be living in Dubai, where he traveled before his indictment. Bergdahl, meanwhile, was arrested after boarding a private jet in Houston that was bound for Dubai. She has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com