GP, nurses issued false vaccine certificates – even police bought some

A Hungarian GP and his assistant were arrested in Budapest on the suspicion of issuing false vaccination certificates. The suspects have collected EUR 170,000 (~ HUF 60 million) from the patients involved in the case, two of whom are police officers.

The well-founded suspicion is that the Hungarian healthcare worker, in collaboration with his assistant, issued dozens of vaccination certificates without actually administering the vaccine. The illegal action was paid for by patients who did not wish to receive the vaccine but needed an immunity certificate, which was issued by the suspects for EUR 42-85 (~HUF 15,000–30,000).

The suspects divided the amount received equally among them. The two perpetrators gained a significant amount of corruption money: a total of EUR 170,000 (~ HUF 60 million) was seized, reported Hungarian news portal Napi.hu.

What is even more surprising is that

two police officers are also involved in the corruption case. They, too, paid the suspects to receive the vaccination certificate.

The GP filled the syringe with the vaccine, then emptied the contents into the sink, saying “Let it run out,” reported Blikk.

This is not the first time that the authorities crack down on fake immunity certificates. A similar case was reported a month ago. That time, 42 criminal proceedings were opened by police investigative authorities for illegal actions related to immunity documents, 18 of which were related to the involvement of healthcare professionals, reported Infostart.

The regional investigating prosecutor’s office ordered the two healthcare workers to be detained, and they questioned them as suspects of corruption offences – committed by the GP as the perpetrator and by the assistant as an accessory –, and then ordered their arrest.

The suspects could be sentenced to prison from 2 to 8 years.

Four people have so far been questioned as suspects in the case, but neither the healthcare workers nor the two police officers have confessed to the crime.