Police have busted a suspected medical insurance fraud gang that illegally obtained and sold drugs, officials said yesterday.
Starting in 2013, the suspects allegedly obtained nearly 4 million yuan ($600,000) worth of prescription medications, the cost of which was covered by public health insurance, and sold them to drug dealers, the local medical insurance supervision authority and police said in statement.
It came to the attention of the authority via its online monitoring system last year that two insured local couples had been prescribed a large amount of pharmaceuticals by doctors at local medical institutions, including Ruijin Hospital and Huashan Hospital. The suspects, who used their own smart cards as well as those of relatives and friends, allegedly sold the drugs to two drug dealers from Jiangsu Province surnamed Lu and Ruan.
The inspectors then set up a special task force in cooperation with local police to target the gang.
Investigators found that Lu and Ruan had been going to hospitals and buying prescription drugs from insured patients for 50 percent of the official price. They then sold them to distributors who sold them on to dealers in other cities, said the statement.
In a raid on April 8, the authority and police caught Lu at his residence, seizing 3,220 boxes of medicine worth 584,200 yuan, it said. The pharmaceuticals included blood pressure control drugs, lipid-lowering drugs and oral antidiabetic drugs, said the statement.
Police said 35 insured people are believed to have been involved in the scheme, including the two couples, who were caught in possession of 15 medical insurance cards and had obtained 3,892,300 yuan worth of drugs using public insurance since 2013.
Another nine insured people have been asked to assist investigators, seven of whom admitted that they gave their cards to the two couples to pick up medicine for them. However, they said they received only a portion of the medication prescribed to them, according to the statement.
Four insured people have returned 142,900 yuan obtained illegally, it said.
Two of the six arrested have been released on bail.
Selling prescription medicine paid for with public medical insurance is punishable by a fine of up to 10,000 yuan.
