Simple mischief, heist of the century. This Monday, the German courts convicted a 19-year-old young man of embezzling 5.7 million euros of public funds by carrying out a very successful Covid-19 test scam, reports the local press, carried by the news from Alsace.
The then 17-year-old remarked that it was very easy to trick the authorities responsible for reimbursement for screenings in Germany. In the German centers, patients with risky contacts pay nothing for the tests. Providers advance the costs.
He first presents his idea to those around him. It would be enough to print fake documents about the establishment of a “citizen test”, a local investigation body. And to send false invoices to the Kassenärtzliche Vereinigung (KV), a medical association approved by the German health insurance companies.
Not content with uncovering his plan, the young man decides to test it. It declares a fictitious testing center on the reimbursement services web platform and addresses 492,000 false tests through a billing form that does not require proof that the screenings were performed.
Other cases will be examined
Based on these 5,000 tests per day, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians grants a reimbursement of 5.7 million euros by bank transfer. So here are the young rich and guilty: The bank is surprised by such earnings and reports. The Freiburg im Breisgau court, where he was on trial, found the fraud “shocking”.
Guilty but not imprisoned. The court sentenced the young man, but in the form of a “juvenile detention”. He has a probationary period of one year. If he does not commit an administrative offence, no sanction will be imposed on him apart from a simple fine of 1,500 euros.
Several similar cases are also being examined by German courts. In April 2022, the newspaper Die Zeit reported that two men aged 19 and 24 are suspected of having stolen more than 14 million euros using similar methods. Several other test operators are being sued for overcharging.