Fraud on Covid-19 tests: a Parisian pharmacist imprisoned

Europe 1 with AFP 7:49 p.m., January 18, 2022

A Parisian pharmacist was indicted and imprisoned in mid-December, suspected of having invoiced fictitious Covid-19 screening tests, for damages of at least several million euros for Health Insurance, a-t -we learned Tuesday from concordant sources. On December 17, this man was indicted by a Parisian investigating judge for fraud and money laundering in an organized gang and for forgery and use of forgery, then placed in pre-trial detention, confirmed a judicial source.

According to

, which revealed the existence of this investigation, the investigations began after a doctor discovered that he had bought thousands of tests without his knowledge.

The Primary Health Insurance Fund (CPAM), quoted in the newspaper, would have seized the Paris prosecutor's office after "having noted fraudulent practices of invoicing to Health Insurance of orders (of antigenic tests) not delivered" to doctors.

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The pharmacist would have overestimated his test reports

Between September and mid-December, the pharmacist would have on the one hand overvalued his declarations of tests carried out in his pharmacy and on the other hand would have inflated the number of test kits sold to doctors, to the detriment of the CPAM. "Doctors told us they did not know the pharmacist," said a source close to the case, saying that a second pharmacist had also been heard in police custody.

“We still have to understand the mechanism of reimbursements by the CPAM”, we underlined from the same source.

“Carriers have been commissioned. Orders (for tests) have been delivered, others not or to other people”.

According to

, investigators from the clever crime prevention brigade of the Paris judicial police found 800,000 euros in cash in one of the pharmacies at the beginning of January.