Anosh Ahmed

Three former Loretto Hospital leaders allegedly embezzled more than $15 million.

Anosh Ahmed, the hospital’s former chief financial officer; Heather Bergdahl, the former chief transformation officer; and Sameer Suhail, a medical supply company owner, were charged in a 41-count federal indictment that was revealed Thursday, July 11 in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

Federal officials only referred to the affected Chicago hospital as “Hospital A” in the indictment, but LinkedIn data and other information tie all three individuals to Loretto  Hospital, located on the city’s West Side.

As the hospital’s CFO, Ahmed was responsible for managing the hospital’s finances, including its finance, accounting, and accounts payable departments. From 2018-22, Ahmed schemed with Bergdahl and Suhail to cause the hospital to issue payments to vendor companies for goods and services that the defendants knew had not been provided, the indictment states.

Many of the purported vendor companies were created by Suhail and Ahmed under various names to conceal their association with the fraudulent payments, prosecutors said. Bergdahl opened bank accounts in the names of two legitimate hospital vendors and caused the hospital to deposit fraudulent payments into those accounts, the indictment alleges.

To conceal the scheme, Ahmed, Bergdahl, and Suhail allegedly created fictitious invoices, payment

Heather Bergdahl

requests, delivery receipts, and other false documents about goods and services purportedly provided to the hospital. As a result of the scheme, the defendants caused the hospital to pay more than $15 million into bank accounts that they controlled, the indictment states.

The superseding indictment charges Ahmed, 40, of Houston, with eight counts of wire fraud, four counts of embezzlement, 11 counts of aiding and abetting embezzlement, and three counts of money-laundering.

Bergdahl, 37, also of Houston, is charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, 21 counts of embezzlement, and one count of moneiy-laundering.

Suhail, 47, of Chicago, is charged with six counts of wire fraud, six counts of aiding and abetting embezzlement, and two counts of money-laundering.

Arraignments in Chicago federal court have not yet been scheduled.

Suhail created 25 different companies that were used for fake billing, according to federal officials. Ahmed created four fictitious companies in the scheme, prosecutors said.
The scheme got so elaborate, according to federal officials, that Ahmed and Bergdahl got a handyman who did projects at a property Ahmed owned to incorporate in Ohio as “Mideast Contractors” and send the hospital 19 invoices for $92,285 in purported work.

Bergdahl also allegedly got Loretto Hospital to pay for four copiers at a cost of $34,000, when, in fact, those copiers were used for Suhail and Ahmed’s personal use.

Sameer Suhail

Fictitious Suhail companies allegedly netted $11.4 million from the hospital, including $3 million to Maximum Healthcare Solutions, Inc.; $3.6 million to Austin Outpatient Pharmacy; and $867,000 to Allied Protective Equipment.

In addition, the three worked to allocate $2.7 million to the fictitious Shenzhen Medical Supplies, according to federal prosecutors.

Bergdahl also used duplicate billing and siphoned the second payment to another individual, not the original company, prosecutors said.

Federal officials say they are going after the $15 million as a potential property forfeiture.

Ahmed’s LinkedIn profile lists him as chief operating officer of Loretto from June 2018 until March 2021.

Zoominfo listed Bergdahl as the chief transformation officer at The Loretto Hospital, based in Chicago.

On Webnode, a website building platform, Suhail’s page said his “entrepreneurial undertakings serve The Loretto Hospital in Chicago, improving the profits cycle by 35% and offering quality psychiatric treatments in a mainly low-income majority black community.”

Ahmed became embroiled in controversy when more than half of Loretto Hospital’s early on-site coronavirus vaccine doses went to white and Asian people — although city officials expected it to prioritize the West Side’s Black and Latino communities, an audit showed, according to the Better Government Association.

The BGA noted Loretto also admitted to vaccinating ineligible people at Trump Tower where Ahmed lives and a luxury Gold Coast jewelry shop Ahmed frequents, but it downplayed other questionable vaccinations.

The report, which detailed what Loretto found after its staff audited its vaccination program, said 30 percent of people who got their shots at Loretto were white and 24 percent were Asian, while only 27 percent were Black and 12 percent Hispanic or Latino.

Ahmed resigned in March 2021.

In a 2021 interview with ideamench.com, Ahmed said he was involved in more than three dozen businesses.

“Right now, I am involved in over 40 different business ventures,” he said. “They range from hospitals to clinics, real estate investing, as well as being an angel investor. If someone needs capital and it is a good opportunity, then I do investments as well.”

He downplayed the importance of money in the interview.

“A lot of people say that money does bring you happiness, but I don’t think it does,” he said. “I think it brings you comfort, but happiness should be created by you and not so much by the money that you make.”

Commenting on his favorite quote, Ahmed said, “So the quote that I always put up on some of the social media that I have is, “The test of success is not what you do when you’re on top, but it is how you bounce back when you hit rock bottom.”