A criminal scheme involving cancer drugs has been uncovered in Romania. The expensive drugs reimbursed by the state were sold to companies in Germany, local media reported. Some of the drugs in question are among the most expensive on the market, BTA reported.
In their reports on the subject, PRO TV and Antenna 1 explain in detail how exactly the scheme worked.
The suspects offered poor patients amounts from 200 to 500 lei (from 80 to 200 leva) for some of the drugs prescribed to them. The pills then ended up with doctors from the criminal network, who instead of issuing prescriptions to their patients, gave them the pills they had purchased "on the black" on the spot, and issued prescriptions in the names of other patients. The prescriptions were then filled by "partner" pharmacies, where a fictitious sale of the drugs was simulated. Then, healthcare companies, some of them registered in Bulgaria, were involved in the scheme. After the fictitious sale, the drugs could be sold again, but not in Romania, since they had already entered the system, but to foreign companies - mostly in Germany, at half the real price.
39 searches were carried out in Bucharest and 9 counties of Romania in the case. Medicines worth tens of thousands of euros were seized. Doctors and pharmacists from all over the country have been summoned to the police to give statements.
The most expensive medicine found in the searches cost 23,000 lei (over 8,800 leva) in just one week, Antena 1 television noted.
Prosecutors and police officers from the economic crimes investigation department claim that the illegal drug sales chain was created in 2022 by several people, including doctors, pharmacists and owners of healthcare companies. However, the criminal scheme could not have been carried out without the participation of people willing to sell their own medicines received free of charge from the state, the PRO TV report said.