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The French National Gendarmerie announced on Tuesday that it had seized a network that it had spent buying expensive drugs with counterfeit prescriptions at cheap prices because it was subsidized by the French Health Insurance Fund, and then intended to smuggle these drugs into Egypt, where he resold these drugs for large sums.
Colonel Ludovic Learhart told AFP that investigations into this case began more than a year ago and led to the arrest of 15 people, most in the Paris region and one person in Italy, in addition to the seizure of valuable French drugs. of more than 400,000. euros and seizure of cash amounts of tens of thousands of euros.
He added that the damage to the French Health Insurance Fund is still being assessed, but “it can be estimated from now on at hundreds of thousands of euros.”
The National Gendarmerie official explained that this network used to sell expensive drugs to treat cancer and liver diseases, and their prices ranged from “two thousand euros to 14 thousand euros per package,” so its production was performed in small quantities. .
The investigation of this case began in late 2019 and investigators found that the network was “very organized and very hierarchical,” according to the same source.
According to Colonel Learhart, the fraudulent operation was based on the recruitment of people through social networks with universal health coverage. Once these “pickers” join the network, they all receive a counterfeit prescription, which they take to the pharmacy, where for a little money they get expensive drugs.
The collectors then deliver the goods to a team of “recipients” who transport them to the Paris region, where a network of “exporters” smuggle them into Egypt.
In addition to the legal and economic aspects of this fraudulent operation, drug smuggling was taking place under mysterious circumstances, threatening the validity of these drugs and posing a serious danger to the health of its users, according to the same source.
The investigation of this case is still ongoing and is being carried out in cooperation with the European police “Europol”.
