False prescription circuit: Drugs in “zero” AMKA – How they charged EOPYY

More than 120,000 euros were confiscated after a search of the homes, workplaces and vehicles of the members of the criminal organization, which carried out directed and false prescriptions of drugs, damaging EOPYY.

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Civil Protection, after an investigation by the Internal Affairs Service of the Security Forces of Northern Greece, in coordinated police operations in Attica, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Imathia, Etoloakarnania, Achaia and Messinia, a total of 13 people were arrested. including the leader of the organization and in particular the president, the sales manager and 10 medical visitors of a pharmaceutical company, as well as the owner of a medical center.

A case was filed against them for – as the case may be – criminal organization, forgery, false medical certificates, bribery and bribery of an employee, false certificate, forgery, fraud, bribery and corruption in the private sector and violation of personal data law.

The case file includes another 173 people, including 49 public doctors, 64 private doctors, pharmacists and medical visitors.

During the investigation of the case, it emerged that the circuit had developed a network of collaborating doctors, both public and private, as well as pharmacists, making directed and false prescriptions of their company’s preparations.

In this way the doctors received corresponding “reciprocal” sums of money – unfair benefits, the company made a profit from the sales of its preparations and the pharmacists made a profit from the execution of the prescriptions in their pharmacies, burdening the EOPYY and damaging it. Greek State.

To achieve their criminal activity they used the following mode of action:

– Targeted – directed prescription of specific preparations of this company in patient cases

– False prescriptions in AMKA, without the knowledge of their owners, which the above-mentioned network has caught from various sources

– False prescriptions in AMKA of people of their relative and social circle, with their knowledge and with their consent

– Changing prescriptions by collaborating pharmacists when performing them in their pharmacies – a process in which they give the patient a different medicine than the one listed in the prescription (“locked prescriptions”), and then triggering a prescription from a collaborating doctor, of a medicine which they had already administered, without ever having carried out the original prescription given to them by their sick client, but the one subsequently issued.

The main goal of the organization was to catch the so-called “zeros” AMKA, ie AMKA, whose holders are not obliged to pay a participation fee for the supply of medicines, with EOPYY being charged entirely with the total amount of the drug to maximize its profits.

In addition, the illegally prescribed drugs were “resold” at retail prices, a process from which the circuit multiplied its profits, as it received revenue for a drug, both from EOPYY and from the illegal resale.

For the needs of operation and achievement of its objectives, the criminal organization had a pyramidal structure, with distinct roles, and had divided the Greek territory into northern and southern sectors, where in each sector he was the head of the company, under the supervision of a number of medical visitors.

They were in charge of recruiting doctors, in order to carry out directed – illegal prescription of drugs of the company’s interests, a process from which the members of the criminal organization and the collaborating doctors benefited financially.

Furthermore, the responsible members of the criminal organization collected on a monthly basis the prescription statistics of the collaborating doctors (“prints”), which were exported through specialized medical prescription software – programs, which were used by the doctors.

The prescriptions were then handed over by the medical visitors to the heads of the departments, who checked them and calculated the sums of money – unfair benefits that had to be paid to the collaborating doctors.

Then the heads of the departments received from the management of the criminal organization the respective sums of money – illegal benefits, which were mainly sent as unaccompanied parcels by KTEL buses. or were received in live meetings at the company’s headquarters and in turn handed them over to the medical visitors, who paid them to the final recipients, the collaborating doctors.

From the searches carried out in the homes, workplaces and vehicles of the arrested, among others, were found and confiscated:

– EUR 123,300

– 12 deposit books

– 54 portable electronic devices (laptop, tablets, mobile, usb)

– 5 knives

– Thousands of executed prescriptions of medicines

– 2,340 pharmaceuticals, lists of associate doctors

Monthly prescription forms for doctors and

agendas with handwritten notes.

The detainees were referred to the 2nd Special Investigator in Thessaloniki, from whom they were given a deadline to apologize on Wednesday – and until then they remain in custody.

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