Fraud involving millions in corona tests: 31-year-old sentenced
A 31-year-old man has been sentenced to two years' probation at Trier Regional Court for fraud involving millions of euros in the billing of corona tests. As a former operator of test centers, he had overbilled almost 112,000 corona tests and "fraudulently scammed" a good million euros, said presiding judge Armin Hardt on Tuesday. The sentence was suspended on probation because compensation for the entire loss had been secured.
The man's comprehensive confession also mitigated the sentence. And: "That the crime was made easy," said Hardt. At the time, all you had to do was enter figures for tests in order to bill the Rhineland-Palatinate Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV). "And he got the money without any further checks," said the judge. The 31-year-old ran a total of 25 test centers in Trier and northern Rhineland-Palatinate. The verdict is final.
The senior public prosecutor in Trier, Wolfgang Bohnen, spoke of "an error in the system" in the billing of the so-called citizen tests at the time. If it had been organized differently, the crimes would not have occurred, he said in his plea. At the time, test center operators would have reported the number of tests that were carried out to the State Office for Social Affairs, Youth and Care - along with the results. The figures were then reported to the KV for billing purposes. There was no exchange between the two offices.
The 31-year-old had regretted the acts in the period from August 2021 to June 2022. "I'm sorry," he said in what he called his last word. "The hurdle was low." He had simply entered more tests on the computer. Initially, he was not interested in making big money, but "to make ends meet". He had been running a club in Trier since 2017, which did not work during the coronavirus period.
The testing stations were an alternative to earning money, he said. However, in the beginning, this was also "a loss-making business", as he had to advance costs for staff and materials. Later, "something got stuck". He had partly squandered the money and bought a Lamborghini for around 140,000 euros.
They became aware of the man during a plausibility check and then filed a complaint, said the head of these checks at the KV in Trier. There are still "lots" of other such cases in the country. These include even larger ones, in which the presumed loss amount is in the higher seven-figure range. In one case at the public prosecutor's office in Mainz, he said, the amount involved was around 7.5 million euros.
In Trier, it was the first case of billing fraud at corona test centers to go to court. During the trial, the public prosecutor's office demanded a two-year suspended prison sentence, which the defense agreed with. The court found the man guilty of ten counts of commercial fraud plus one count of attempted fraud.
The Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office is currently aware of 157 cases in which this is the subject of investigations. Most of these cases involve false or fraudulent invoices to the KV, as was reported.
The fraudulent acts committed by the man affected various health-related processes, specifically the billing of corona tests. This is a concerning example of how diseases like Covid-19 can be exploited for criminal gains. The failure to implement proper checks in the billing system facilitated this crime, showing a need for more stringent protocols in such critical situations.
Source: www.dpa.com
