The public prosecutor’s office has expanded the investigation into vaccinations of Italian hotel employees at Munich Airport. According to the General Prosecutor’s Office in Nuremberg, there should have been a second vaccination campaign. The SZ had already reported on a second vaccination campaign. Other employees of a hotel from Italy are said to have received an injection against the corona virus, as Chief Public Prosecutor Matthias Held told the German Press Agency on Friday.
As a result, there is now a trace to North Rhine-Westphalia. According to his information, a doctor’s practice and a pharmacy were searched in Cologne on Thursday. The Cologne doctor is also said to have vaccinated at Munich Airport, reported Held. That is why he is being investigated. At first she had Kölnische Rundschau reported on the raid in Cologne.
So far it was known that around 120 employees of the Italian holiday resort Forte Village had traveled to Munich on May 21 to be vaccinated. After a short stay, the hotel employees flew back to the island of Sardinia. The case made headlines in Italy and Germany. The second vaccination campaign is said to have taken place a week later, also at Munich Airport. It is said to have been again about hotel employees from Italy. In this case, however, the hotel in question was not in Sardinia. It is unclear how many workers received an injection on May 28th. There is a suspicion that doctors vaccinated on both appointments, said Held.
As early as mid-June, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had searched several locations in Munich on suspicion of vaccine embezzlement, bribery and corruption in the healthcare system. Several doctors and other suspects are being investigated. Details of the results of the investigation could not be given yet, said the chief prosecutor.
The company Forte Village had stated that no vaccine from the “state German stock” had been used in the group vaccination. The investigators, however, assume that the vaccine was purchased from the Federal Republic and that the hotel staff from Italy were not authorized to vaccinate in Germany.
The case is being investigated by the Central Office for Combating Fraud and Corruption in the Health Care System. The specialist office set up at the Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office is responsible for the whole of Bavaria.
Both the Federal Ministry of Health and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) had asked for information about the vaccinations of the Italians. “We don’t want vaccination tourism to Germany,” Söder said.