Crime | Health voucher fraud suspected in collusion between clinic and traditional pharmacy

A medical clinic and traditional Chinese pharmacy in Areia Preta were suspected of fraudulently using government health vouchers amounting to MOP8.5 million between 2019 and June 2021, the Judiciary Police (PJ) announced yesterday in a special press conference.
There are a total of 10 suspects in the investigation, five of whom were detained on October 25. All suspects are residents of Macau.
Three of those detained are doctors at the clinic. The first is the owner of the clinic and was first to be suspected, but he has not been in Macau for some time. While he was out of town, the second detainee was in charge at the clinic. The owner of the shop and his son were also detained, with his wife also a suspect in the case.
Four of the suspects were citizens who had cashed in their vouchers at the clinic. They are alleged to have used their health vouchers at the clinic despite not having any health issues.
They then would head to the pharmacy per the doctors’ instructions, where they picked up valuable goods or cash.
Over 5,200 citizens used their health vouchers at the clinic in exchange for goods or cash. Vouchers were used over 16,000 times amounting to a value of MOP8.5 million.
According to the PJ, many clients were observed going into the clinic and leaving one to two minutes later. The police became suspicious as a doctor’s appointment is unlikely to take so little time.
The Health Bureau said that this clinic has always had health vouchers logged in their system, and that the bank accounts used at the clinic belonged to the doctors.
According to the three doctors’ statements, they convinced the pharmacy to participate in this scheme. The three suspects from the pharmacy did not cooperate with the PJ.
The first doctor said that he did not play any part in the scheme, as the second doctor was in charge of the clinic at the time. The clinic owner said he was only responsible for handling administration at the clinic and was not involved with the operations of the clinic.
The second doctor paid the owner of the shop around MOP200,000. The shop owner never received any health vouchers from clients.
The collusion between the clinic and the shop is evidence toward them committing fraud via health vouchers. Suspects one to six are from the clinic and shop, while suspects seven to 10 are people who used their vouchers.
The case is still under investigation. Staff reporter