Healthcare, corruption and forgery in Catanzaro: two entrepreneurs and a doctor arrested

Healthcare, corruption and forgery in Catanzaro: two entrepreneurs and a doctor arrested

Corruption, extortion, disturbed freedom of the contractor selection process, disturbed freedom of auctions, aggravated fraud against the State, ideological forgery, abusive introduction into the computer system and issuing of invoices for non-existent operations. These are the crimes alleged to varying degrees for 15 people for which personal precautionary measures were ordered. The military of the provincial command of the Guardia di Finanza, coordinated by the local prosecutor’s office, carried out the order, issued by the investigating judge of Catanzaro. Several companies benefited from the issuance of invoices for non-existent transactions, and their respective administrative liability was assumed. In particular, house arrest was ordered against two entrepreneurs and a medical director and university professor of the Aou Renato Dulbecco of Catanzaro.

Furthermore, the interdictory measure of suspension from public office was applied to 13 public officials, including the university doctor-lecturer also subjected to the measure of house arrest, employees, respectively, of the Provincial Health Authority of Catanzaro, of the Aou Renato Dulbecco of Catanzaro, of the Provincial Health Authority of Crotone, of the Provincial Health Authority of Cosenza, of the Great Metropolitan Hospital Bianchi Melacrino Morelli of Reggio Calabria and of the University of Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, as well as, one of the suspects, also a municipal councilor of a municipality in the province of Catanzaro. (continued)

The provisions, issued at the request of the Catanzaro public prosecutor’s office, arise from the complex investigative activity carried out by the Economic and Financial Police Unit – Public Spending Protection Group of the Guardia di Finanza of Catanzaro, within the scope of the constant activity of protection of public spending, with particular regard to the health sectoraimed at combating the most sophisticated forms of illicit management of tax resources and fraud against the State.

The complex investigations have allowed us to outline, in the preliminary investigation phase, the seriousness of the circumstantial evidence regarding the disturbed regularity of nine public contracts with a total value of over 33 million euros, called by the Single Contracting Station of the Calabria Region, by the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, as well as by the Ao Pugliese-Ciaccio and by the Aou Mater Domini (now merged into the Aou Dulbecco).

In relation to these competitions, illicit links between some public officials have been hypothesised, responsible for managing the tenders themselves, and the agents-representatives of the companies that supply health materials or services, also through the disturbed freedom of the procedure for choosing the contractor with tenders and specifications drawn up in such a way as to direct the award to predetermined subjects, in violation of competition and to the detriment of the cost-effectiveness and transparency of the administrative action. (continued)

In some cases, corrupt conduct has been hypothesized, with benefits (promised or provided) to the public officials involved, intended as remuneration for the illicit conduct that would have been perpetrated in favor of the economic operators involved in the procedures. Also hypothesized, in terms of the seriousness of the evidence, were crimes of forgery and other, in the performance of competitions announced by some of the aforementioned public bodies, for the recruitment of personnel, and fraud, in relation to the distribution of the incentive fund for technical functions, for the benefit of employees of the former Ao Pugliese-Ciaccio, in the absence of the required conditions.

The crime of fraud was also hypothesized in relation to the perception, by a medical director of the former Aou Mater Domini and the Magna Graecia University, bound by a full-time and exclusive employment contract, of the relative economic allowances of exclusivity, although he worked, secretly, at two private clinics accredited with the National Health Service (based in the provinces of Crotone and Naples), and this through the use of two companies with no real legal-economic substance, which would have systematically issued invoices for non-existent operations, with subsequent payment of sums in cash to the public official. At the same time, the seizure ordered urgently by the prosecutor against two people and a company for a total value of approximately 530,000 euros was carried out. The criminal proceedings for the alleged crimes are pending in the preliminary investigation phase.