Greek police have broken up a criminal ring accused of cheating the country’s national health insurer out of more than 405,000 euros through fake prescriptions, and the man named as its alleged leader is reported to be a former parliamentary candidate for PASOK, the country’s main center-left party.
The Organized Crime Directorate carried out a coordinated operation across parts of the Attica region on Thursday, July 2. The Financial Crimes Prosecution Sub-Directorate led the raids in cooperation with the National Organization for Medicines (EOF), Greece’s drug regulator. The alleged ringleader was arrested. Nine other people are named in the case file, including two doctors at public hospitals along with pharmacy owners and managers.
The insurer, known by its Greek acronym EOPYY, reimburses pharmacies for medicines dispensed to insured patients. According to the Hellenic Police, the group exploited that system from at least March 2020 through April 2026.
The scheme centered on patients who had not signed up for Greece’s electronic prescription system. Using those patients’ national social security numbers, or AMKA, members of the ring wrote prescriptions the patients never requested, then logged them as filled and forged the patients’ signatures. No real patient ever received the drugs. The ring collected the reimbursements from EOPYY and sold the medicines on for further profit.
Investigators say the two doctors used their positions to write the false prescriptions, while pharmacy owners and managers processed them. So far police have identified 5,429 fake prescriptions.
In the searches, officers seized 240 packages of illegally prescribed medicines, some of them containing narcotics, along with 1,200 euros in cash, a quantity of documents, a laptop, a mobile phone and a car.
The suspects face charges that vary by individual, including forming a criminal organization, fraud, forgery, false certification, unlawful processing of personal data, money laundering and breaches of narcotics law.
The case followed a months-long investigation that began with a complaint from EOPYY. The arrested suspects were taken before the public prosecutor.
