(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 05 - They washed the nasal swabs for ilCovid and used them again to test passengers leaving at the Medan airport in Indonesia. Five employees of a pharmaceutical company were arrested with this accusation and, as reported by the BBC, according to the police about 9 thousand people may have been subjected to checks with reused rods. Now state-owned Kimia Farma risks a potential lawsuit from travelers. According to the reconstruction of the Jakarta Post, at least 150 kits for the rapid antigen test have been used several times, which must give a negative result to allow the traveler to board, as required by government measures. A scandal that, the local newspaper emphasizes, undermines the prospects of recovery in tourism, one of the pillars of theIndonesian economy.
According to the police, this systematic scam began in December in the airport of the capital of Western Sumatra. After numerous complaints from travelers about 'false positives', the police last week sent an undercover agent to undergo the test, which tested positive: his colleagues broke into the test lab, finding that the kits were being reused.
There are reports from 23 witnesses, local media reports, according to which the authorities suspect that the fraud (estimated at about 124 thousand dollars) also served to finance the construction of a luxury home for one of the suspects. Kimia Farma fired the employees involved, promising to tighten internal controls. (HANDLE).