Nearly three million fictitious antigen tests would have been invoiced to the CPAM, for a loss of 18 million euros
A Parisian pharmacist was indicted and imprisoned in mid-December, suspected of having billed for fictitious Covid-19 screening tests, for damages of at least several million euros for Health Insurance, a-t -we learned Tuesday from concordant sources. Le Parisien assesses the damage at 18 million euros.
On December 17, this man was indicted by a Parisian investigating judge for fraud and money laundering in an organized gang and for forgery and use of forgery, then placed in pre-trial detention, confirmed a judicial source.
According to Le Canard enchaîné, which revealed the existence of this investigation, the investigations began after a doctor discovered that he had bought thousands of tests without his knowledge. 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.
800,000 euros in cash
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. Orders (for tests) could be delivered, others not or to other people”. According to Le Canard enchaîné, investigators from the clever crime repression brigade of the Paris judicial police found 800,000 euros in cash in one of the pharmacies in early January.