RIYADH, 27 April 2004 — Three people have been charged in the federal court in Colorado with defrauding the Kingdom through fake health insurance claims.
The three, Valiollah Raoufi, 37, of Los Angeles, Syed Roknedian Daneshfar, 26, of Laguna Niguel, California, and Fedaa Zaqzouq, 30, of Great Falls, Virginia have been accused of submitting fraudulent claims on behalf of students to Saudi Arabia’s health care insurance program.
One of the accused, Zaqzouq, is described as a contract employee of the Saudi Cultural Mission in Washington, D.C. and responsible for processing medical claims of Saudi students attending colleges in the US.
In a statement, the Colorado US Attorney’s office said: “Students from Saudi Arabia studying in the United States direct their doctors to submit medical claims for processing directly to the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, a division of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Higher Education.”
A spokesman for the higher education ministry told Arab News that they had no information on the subject, since the case was filed in a US court.
Raoufi and Daneshfar are alleged to have used false medical-center names to rent five postal boxes in the Denver area, where they received payments for fictitious surgery and other medical claims. A spokesman for the National Company for Cooperative Insurance said many insurance companies, including NCCI, were facing the problem of bogus or inflated insurance claims. The problem, he said, was growing.
Currently, there are around 3,500 students in the US, down from the previous peak level of 30,000 students. According to a survey conducted last year by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in a survey of the top ten American universities, the Saudi student base has declined since Sept. 11, 2001. Difficulties in obtaining visas are further compounded by political and financial concerns.
Although the Sept. 11 attacks led to an exodus of Saudi students from the US, there were 5,800 Saudi students in the United States in 2001 according to official statistics.
Many current members of the Saudi Cabinet were educated there. Twenty-one of the 30 ministers of the Saudi government, it is believed, have American degrees, with 16 of them holding doctorates.
