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Oregon on Thursday sued an Illinois-based COVID-19 testing company, saying its owners took millions of dollars in federal funds and insurance for themselves and boasted about buying mansions and expensive sports cars.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is suing the Covid Control Center (CCC) and its testing partner Doctors Clinical Laboratory, accusing it of deceptively marketing testing services and violating Oregon’s Illicit Trade Practices Act.
The lawsuit alleges that Aleya Siyaj and Akbar Ali Syed, a married couple who own the CCC, had no prior experience in the medical field or medical testing and ran an axe throwing lounge and photography studio.
That raises questions about how they became recipients of federal testing funding. They are also being investigated by the FBI and Illinois public health authorities, the lawsuit states. FBI agents raided the company’s headquarters near Chicago in January, according to local news reports.
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued the CCC in January, accusing it of mishandling tests and providing false results.
The CCC did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The phone number listed on its website is disconnected. CCC has suspended operations and “will not resume patient sample collection until personnel resources allow CCC to operate at full capacity,” the website said.
Oregon lawsuit alleges CCC and Doctors Clinical Laboratory falsely told consumers they could provide accurate PCR COVID-19 results within 72 hours, but produced questionable test results and lacked proper capacity to store and process them Thousands of test samples received every day.
“These companies don’t have the ability to scale as quickly as they do,” Rosenblum said in a statement. The suit alleges that CCC grew from a testing site in Illinois — formerly an axe-throwing lounge — to become One of the largest U.S. testing center operators with 300 testing sites in the U.S., five of which are in Oregon.
“Oregonians rely on shoddy tests to make important decisions — about returning to work or school, traveling, and visiting family and friends,” she said.
The 29-page lawsuit alleges that the couple used millions of dollars received from the federal government and insurance companies for their own tests.
“Syed posted on social media photos of the couple’s purchase, which included a $1,360,000 mansion and multiple multi-million dollar luxury cars, including a sky blue Lamborghini, a red Lamborghini Countach, a Tesla Model Y and a Ferrari Enzo,” the lawsuit states.
Said bought the rare Ferrari for $3.7 million, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County, seeks a permanent ban on CCC and DCL from providing COVID-19 testing in Oregon, compensation for injured Oregonians, and civil penalties of up to $25,000 for each violation of Oregon law , plus attorney’s fees and Oregon investigation costs.
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