Dozens arrested for alleged medical insurance fraud
One of the suspects at a hospital dispensary in Shanghai.
Twenty-four people have been apprehended for allegedly defrauding a medical insurance fund, Shanghai police announced today.
The suspects allegedly received prescribed medications from hospitals via medical insurance policies and went on to sell them.
Police began their investigation last August when the city’s medical insurance watchdog discovered that medical insurance cards had been fraudulently used for medical services.
Prescribed medications were allegedly attained by the suspects for ailments such as hypertension, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease at several community and private hospitals in Yangpu and Changning districts, claiming they were for friends or relatives.
Police discovered the suspects rented medical insurance cards from other people for several hundred yuan per month.
Medical insurance covered up to 90 percent of the medications' costs. They were sold to agents at 40 to 50 percent of their original prices, who sold them for 50 to 65 percent of their original prices to a gang based in Henan Province. They were then sold at 60 to 80 percent of their original prices to customers, according to police.
Police recently arrested the suspects in Shanghai as well as Anhui and Henan provinces, seizing more than 40,000 bottles of medicine worth over 1.6 million yuan (US$250,000).
Among the suspects, 14 were arrested for allegedly running illegal businesses and seven for fraud.
Some of the medications seized by police.
