When the corona vaccines were still scarce in Germany, the immunization of employees at an Italian luxury hotel at Munich Airport sparked outrage. Now the injections have legal consequences.
The Munich district court has issued penal orders against two doctors and a pharmacist as well as an employee of an Italian luxury resort and sentenced them to fines of between 25,000 and 60,000 euros. The four people are said to have embezzled a corona vaccine in early summer 2021 and illegally administered it to employees at a luxurious holiday resort in Sardinia. The case caused a stir at the time because more than 100 people had been flown in from Italy for a day specifically for the vaccination and at the time the vaccine in this country was still very scarce.
The Central Office for Combating Fraud and Corruption in the Health Care System (ZKG), which is based at the Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office, initially investigated seven people in the matter and ultimately applied for penal orders against four suspects. Because they have lodged an objection, the penal orders are not yet final. The case is now being heard in the district court, but a date has not yet been set.
According to the findings of the ZKG, the hotel employees organized three vaccination campaigns for their employees. Two of them are said to have taken place in a hotel at Munich Airport at the end of May 2021, and another date was scheduled for June 2021 in the Italian holiday resort. The pharmacist procured and made available the vaccine for at least two of the three campaigns. The two doctors are said to have injected him in Munich; one of the two is said to have been involved in organizing the vaccination campaign in Sardinia.
A total of 228 cans from the manufacturer Biontech were used at the time, as well as small quantities from other manufacturers at the appointments in Munich, according to the Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office. In their opinion, however, the Italian hotel employees had no right to a vaccination in Germany.
Since the vaccine was purchased by the Federal Republic and made available to doctors and pharmacists free of charge, the accused were guilty “of fraudulent embezzlement, sometimes in several cases”. As the responsible senior public prosecutor Matthias Held announced, two of the accused provided information on the course of the vaccination campaigns in the course of the investigation and two did not comment on the matter.