First conviction for the iDental plot, the macro-cause that investigates the fraudulent management of low-cost dental clinics in 14 autonomous communities between 2015 and 2018 and that affected thousands of patients, more than 21,000 of them in the Region of Murcia. The National Court punished this Friday with sentences of between two and a half and five years in prison, and joint fines of 116 million euros for a crime against Social Security, the five owners of the company and the administrator as a necessary collaborator.
The sentence of the Third Criminal Section punishes the owners of iDental between February 2005 and October 2017 with three years in prison and a fine of more than 25 million: Antonio Javier García Pellicer and Vicente Castañer, while it imposes five years and a fine of more than 55 million to the subsequent owners of the company: Luis Sans and the brothers José María and Juan Garrido. A sixth defendant, the administrator José Luis González, is sentenced as a necessary collaborator of the previous two and a half years and a fine of 36 million.
The resolution of the court chaired by Alfonso Guevara has agreed to apply to the six convicted the simple mitigation of undue delays (the case broke out in October 2018) while acquitting the seventh defendant in the trial, Domingo Bejarano, of the continued crime against Social Security .
The Murcian victims mobilized on numerous occasions and the Community demanded that the central Executive intervene to conclude the treatments
Regarding civil liability, the ruling condemns the defendants to jointly indemnify Social Security with the amount not paid during their management: 8.5 million euros in the case of Pellicer and Castañer, and 18.3 million million in that of the other four convicted, amounts for which the 55 group companies must respond in a subsidiary manner. This first judged piece has dealt with the fraud against the Treasury committed by the business leadership.
According to the 265-page sentence, the conduct of the defendants “did not consist of the mere fact of not paying, but rather they achieved this end with a series of fraudulent maneuvers designed for that purpose that made both the inspection and collection work difficult.” of the Social Security, so that, while they owned iDental, the Treasury could not collect all the fees owed by the group entities ».
“Fraud scheme”
Despite this, the owners as of 2017 “continued with the preconceived fraudulent plan”, opening clinics (up to 26 in 14 communities), increasing that debt in less than a year from eight to 18 million.
Until September 2017, the parent company had paid the treasury between 26 and 27 million euros and had between 3,500 and 4,000 workers. Social Security costs ranged monthly between one and a half million and one million eight hundred thousand euros. Of the deferrals of payments that they managed with Social Security in 2016 and were approved, all but one were attended to and in 2017, ten. But the financial difficulties of the group were already evident. Despite this, there was a distribution of benefits: up to 3.5 million in three personal accounts.
The Straumann Group was the one who gave the last breath to the company. The multinational of the dental sector injected 14.2 million, and with that they paid payroll, Social Security and urgent payments to continue with the progress of the company that was in a “critical situation”. But iDental’s collapse was precipitated by a crisis in the dental sector as most of the financial companies, which were the bulk of the billing, dropped the company due to non-payment.
The dimensions of the fraud triggered a succession of mobilizations in a good part of Spain, including the Region of Murcia, where rallies, demonstrations and traffic stops were held. Oral infections, hepatitis C infections, half-done paid treatments, poorly performed implants… were some of the problems denounced by the Murcian victims of fraud.
Representatives of those affected came to demand the involvement of the authorities through a “declaration of health emergency.” Consumer associations were overwhelmed by a barrage of complaints against iDental.
The Community itself appealed to the central Executive to ask the financial institutions to suspend the installments of the credits granted, not including those affected in the delinquent files as was happening. Another of the actions that he proposed was that the State set up an aid fund aimed at those affected, so that they could finish their treatments with full guarantee.
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