Six doctors investigated in Region of Murcia prescription fraud case
Guardia Civil says more than 250 prescriptions may have been falsified in a scheme linked to a pharmaceutical laboratory employee
Six doctors are being investigated in the Region of Murcia after the Guardia Civil uncovered what it says may have been a system for falsifying more than 250 prescriptions for subsidised medicines.The case is being handled under Operation “Eczane”, which has now led to seven people being investigated in total. Alongside the six medical professionals, a sales representative for a pharmaceutical laboratory is also under investigation. All are suspected of offences including falsification of public documents, influence peddling, usurpation of civil status and belonging to a criminal group.
The investigation began at the start of the year after the Inspection and Healthcare Services of the General Sub-Directorate of Health Planning and Services detected irregularities in the prescribing, dispensing and billing of paper prescriptions for subsidised medicines bought between 2023 and 2024. Those medicines were paid for by the Murcian Health Service, known as the SMS.
According to the Guardia Civil’s Economic Crimes Team, the documents listed patients who did not know the doctors who had signed the prescriptions, did not suffer from the illnesses recorded, and had not collected the medicines from pharmacies.
That finding was central to the investigation. Officers say they were able to identify the six doctors who allegedly signed the prescriptions without the patients’ knowledge, as well as the person who collected the medicines. He is said to have worked as a salesman for the same pharmaceutical laboratory that produced the drugs.
Investigators believe the salesman presented the prescriptions at pharmacies across the Region of Murcia in order to obtain the medicines free of charge, leaving the pharmacies to bill the public health system directly. The Guardia Civil suspects the arrangement was designed to help the employee boost his sales targets.
The proceedings have now been passed to the competent judicial authority.
The case has raised serious questions about how the prescriptions were handled and how a system meant to support patients may have been exploited instead.
Image: Guardia Civil
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