Charges against corona test center operators: 25 million euros in damage
The defendant wanted to settle more than 900,000 tests, but they are said not to have actually been carried out. Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa / Symbolbild
© dpa-infocom GmbH
It’s about a million dollar damage: A corona rapid test operator from Bochum is said to have billed far more samples than carried out in numerous test sites in Germany for weeks.
Because of the suspicion of billing fraud with corona rapid tests worth millions, the Bochum public prosecutor has brought charges against two persons responsible at a test center operator.
Incorrect billing in at least 70 test sites in many German cities is said to have caused damage of at least 25 million euros, the Bochum district court announced on Wednesday.
The prosecution assumes that over 900,000 tests have been billed that are actually not supposed to have been carried out. With the alleged fraud, the main accused de facto managing director is said to have used the pandemic emergency to “enrich himself personally with public funds in the Federal Republic of Germany,” according to the investigators’ allegation, according to a court announcement.
At the request of the German Press Agency, the attorney for the test site operator could not be reached at first. According to “Westdeutscher Allgemeine Zeitung”, he does not want to accept at least some of the allegations: “My client denies the allegation that too much was billed,” said defense lawyer Reinhard Peters of the newspaper on Wednesday. The other allegations are “purely legal questions” that the court must answer.
Research by NDR, WDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung” had brought up the case in early summer. The reporters had counted customers in front of the MediCan centers – much fewer than had been brought to the account.
According to the court, father and son are indicted in Bochum. The former has been in custody since the beginning of June on charges of fraud. He is accused of actually running the business. According to the conviction of the public prosecutor’s office, the son accused of aiding and abetting fraud had been appointed as the formal managing director of the GmbH on paper. He had been in custody for a while, but was released.
As the court announced, between March and April 2021, the de facto managing director “billed the multiple of the tests actually carried out after he recognized that there was no direct evidence of the actual performance of the tests in the billing due to the pandemic-related peculiarities needed ». As a result, the lion’s share of the damage amount of more than 20 million euros should have arisen, said a spokeswoman for the regional court.
The operator is said to have unjustly pocketed further sums by incorrectly stating that the tests were carried out by medical staff. According to the federal corona test ordinance, doctors were entitled to charge 15 instead of 12 euros per antigen rapid test in the spring.
According to the court, the investigators accuse the son and formally appointed managing director of aiding and abetting fraud. He is said to have known about the wrong statements by April at the latest. The district court is now examining whether the indictment will be admitted to the main hearing.
According to the Bochum public prosecutor’s office, the investigation into a third suspect in the case continues. Exactly what he was accused of cannot be given for reasons of tactical investigations.
Contrary to what was initially feared by observers, the fraudulent accounts in rapid test centers did not turn out to be a “mass phenomenon”, according to the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the judicial authorities, there have been and are now a number of investigations against “black sheep” by several public prosecutors, but there is no widespread problem.