St. Louis Ketamine Doctors Charged: 22 Felony Counts in DEA Fraud Scheme

Two St. Louis-area doctors ran a ketamine clinic like their own personal drug distribution operation – and the feds finally caught up with them. Dr. Asim Muhammad Ali and Dr. Mohd Azfar Malik were indicted on January 11, 2024 on 22 felony counts including conspiracy to illegally distribute controlled substances, maintaining a drug-involved premises, and healthcare fraud.

At the center of the scheme: Dr. Ali didn’t have a DEA registration to administer controlled substances. So starting in late 2020, he used Dr. Malik’s DEA credentials to run ketamine infusions at Malik’s COPE Ketamine Clinic – without Malik’s direct supervision and without a valid registration for the office location. Federal investigators allege Ali was essentially practicing medicine under a stolen license.

It didn’t stop there. Ali had been suspended from Missouri Medicaid in December 2020 – and never told Medicare. He kept seeing Medicare patients and billing for services using Malik’s name and Medicare billing number. The government says Malik submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers for services he never personally performed, racking up ,442 in fraudulent billings.

Federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of Missouri built a 22-count indictment that laid out the arrangement in clinical detail: two licensed physicians conspiring to dodge federal drug laws, bilk government healthcare programs, and cover their tracks with each other’s credentials.

In May 2025, both doctors folded. Dr. Malik pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements related to healthcare matters and agreed to surrender his DEA registrations. Dr. Ali pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to illegally distribute controlled substances and admitted to billing Medicare using Malik’s information for services he personally performed. Both face federal sentencing.

The investigation was led by federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri with support from the DEA and HHS Office of Inspector General – agencies that have made ketamine clinic fraud a growing enforcement priority as the drug’s popularity surges.