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District Court Nuremberg-Fürth (2018)
Photo: Daniel Karmann / dpa
The Nuremberg-Fürth district court has sentenced two operators of corona test centers to several years in prison.
They had stolen more than 400,000 euros with corona tests, which never existed.
A 34-year-old was sentenced to four years and two months in prison for fraud, and his 31-year-old accomplice three years and five months in prison.
A 33-year-old defendant was given a suspended sentence for being an accessory.
According to the court, the two men operated a total of twelve test centers in Nuremberg, Fürth and Schwabach between May and August 2021.
They settled the tests taken there with the Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVB).
According to the verdict, however, the cost reimbursements requested were a good 600,000 euros higher than justified - of which around 437,000 euros were paid out.
When allegations of fraud arose, the KVB stopped making payments.
The operators had therefore invented about 36,000 tests.
The 34-year-old main perpetrator had previously received money from corona aid programs for his companies with eight different applications, to which he was not entitled.
He was therefore also convicted of subsidy fraud.
An employee who reported false numbers from the test centers to the KVB was found guilty of aiding and abetting fraud.
All three defendants confessed to their crimes during the trial.
bbr/dpa
