Simple mischief, heist of the century. This Monday, German justice sentenced a 19-year-old young man for having embezzled 5.7 million euros of public money by setting up a very successful Covid-19 test scam, reports the local press, relayed by Latest news from Alsace.
Then aged 17, the teenager noticed that it was very easy to trick the public authorities responsible for reimbursing screenings in Germany. In German centers, patients pay nothing for testing in the event of risky contact. Providers advance the costs.
His idea, he first presents it to those around him. It would suffice to print false documents relating to the creation of a “Bürgertest”, a local screening centre. And to send false invoices to the Kassenärtzlichen Vereinigung (KV), an association of doctors approved by the German health insurance services.
Not content with exposing his plan, the young man decides to test it. It declares a fictitious test center on the reimbursement services web platform, and addresses 492,000 false tests, through a billing form that does not ask for any proof of the carrying out of the screenings.
Other cases are being considered
On the basis of these 5,000 tests per day, the Kassenärtzlichen Vereinigung grants a reimbursement of 5.7 million euros, by transfer. So here is the young rich and guilty: the bank is surprised by such income and proceeds to report. The Court of Freiburg im Breisgau, where he was tried, found the scam “staggering”.
Guilty, but not imprisoned. The court sentenced the young man, but in the form of a “juvenile sentence”. He has a probationary period of one year. If he commits no offence, no sanction will be imposed on him, except a simple fine of 1,500 euros.
Several similar cases are also being examined by the German courts. In April 2022, the newspaper Die Zeit reported that two men aged 19 and 24 were suspected of having defrauded more than 14 million euros, using similar methods. Several other test operators are being sued for overcharging.