Whether they live in Nigeria, Indonesia, Russia, or the U.S., a scammer is a scammer. Give any of this sub-breed of humans an opportunity to enrich themselves by destroying others and they’ll punch that time clock. Whether they’re amassing their fortune by hawking merchandise that’ll never be received, preying on lonely souls on dating sites, or pumping out misleading “this may come as a surprise to you” emails, it makes little difference. If their targets weren’t still falling for that stuff, they’d find new ways. Possibly similar to what these two right here in the land of the free tried to get away with.
As omicron was still ripping America a new one last month, a lady in Washington state wasn’t feeling well so she stopped by a Center for COVID Control site for a rapid test before heading straight home to wait on the results. After five hours of waiting, she became frustrated and returned to the clinic only to be informed that her test results had been lost.
All she could do was allow the clinic to administer a second test, which she did. She went home for the second time to await the results but when she called the clinic only two hours later, she was informed that her results had once again been misplaced.
Adding to the woman’s confusion, a short one minute following the call, she received an email from the clinic telling her she had tested negative. With good reason, she became concerned and decided to get yet a third test, but this time she went to a local health department where, much to her non-surprise, she tested positive.
The two primary owners of the clinic, Akbar Syed and Aleya Siyaj, (who’s surprised?), are in deep camel dung with Washington’s attorney general. The clinic is based out of Illinois and operates 13 approved Center for Covid Control sites throughout the state.
After a little further investigating, the two are being sued for providing “invalid, false, and delayed” test results, and for the way too many times they were “misplaced.” The attorney general said this has placed the health and security of thousands of Washingtonians in jeopardy.
Employees at the clinics were tossing test samples into red garbage bags left out of refrigeration for over a week when the tests are only good for three days with proper refrigeration. They would, then, backdate the tests to appear legit and send them to the lab where they would, of course, produce negative results.
AG Bob Ferguson said, “Employees reported that the company instructed them to ‘lie to patients on a daily basis’ when Washingtonians complained about their delayed results.”
If this isn’t worrisome enough, let’s look at the happily wed-locked couple, Syed and Siyaj. They began pursuing their American dream in December 2020 and have since, in only a couple of short years, grown their business to 300 separate clinics spread around the country.
In October 2021 they were approved by Washington state to provide coronavirus testing, which they immediately began offering for free, no appointment needed. Come one, come all.
The state had already received numerous complaints about the clinic not following proper safety protocols. These included workers not being properly masked if at all, workers reusing disposable gloves, and not knowing how to properly administer the test.
Employees said that by December, they were receiving up to 10,000 test results every single day and there was no way to keep up because all of the clinics were minimally staffed. Syed and Siyaj were fully aware of the red garbage bags being piled up in rooms but they refused to hire additional staff, even when begged by their employees.
We may never know what the true virus statistics were in Washington state prior to these two getting caught, but they should be facing murder charges of serial proportions. And there’s a fairly good chance they will be. Welcome to America.
