A Parisian pharmacist was imprisoned because he was suspected of having charged for fictitious Covid-19 screening tests, we learned on Tuesday from concordant sources. This man was indicted on December 17 by a Parisian investigating judge for fraud and money laundering in an organized gang and for forgery and use of forgery, then was subsequently placed in pre-trial detention, confirmed a judicial source.
According to The chained Duck, which revealed the existence of this investigation, the investigations began after a doctor discovered that he had unknowingly purchased thousands of tests. 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.
Fake sales of tests
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,” reported 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,” said the same source. “Carriers have been assigned. Some orders [de tests] could have been delivered, others not or to other people”. The damage would amount to at least several million euros for health insurance. According to The chained Duck, investigators from the clever crime repression brigade of the Paris judicial police found 800,000 euros in cash in one of the pharmacies at the beginning of January.