Two dentists in southern France have been sentenced to prison for allegedly exchanging healthy teeth for prostheses.
The two men are to be imprisoned for five and eight years respectively, as the German Press Agency learned from the Marseille public prosecutor on Thursday.
Accordingly, father and son also received a final ban on practicing their profession.
The case has caused horror in France.
The son is said to have abused more than 300 patients between 2006 and 2012 and received money from the health insurance company with the unnecessary installation of prostheses.
He had opened his practice in a poor neighborhood north of Marseille.
His father is said to have helped him.
The main defendant had repeatedly emphasized that he only wanted to care for patients.
"I don't laugh like I used to"
"Le Figaro" reported, citing the indictment, about 3900 healthy teeth that are said to have been killed.
Accordingly, the main defendant was meanwhile the best-earning dentist in France - with a fee of around 2.9 million euros for 2010.
The newspaper "Le Parisien" reported that numerous patients suffered from pain, boils or cysts after the procedure.
Some of the built-in prostheses would not have held up either.
"I'm desperate because I don't have the means to have my teeth remade," Aklim Belaïd told France 3 broadcaster. "I don't laugh like I used to." According to broadcaster BFM TV broke after the verdict on Thursday applause from the hundred or so plaintiffs present in the room.