BeneventoThe agreements were clear: the company would win the contracts for the supply of prostheses and the head physician, who made sure this happened, would receive money and gifts.
Bribes and false tax documents in Benevento where a former head of the orthopedics department, Antonio Piscopo, 68, ended up under house arrest for corruption and issuing invoices for non-existent operations. A seizure of assets worth almost 600 thousand euros was also ordered.
The precautionary measures were adopted after a complex investigation, coordinated by the Sannita Prosecutor's Office and conducted by the Guardia di Finanza, which brought to light a very precise corruption system that went on for several years, from 2014 to 2019.
For the operations scheduled during this period, the Neapolitan doctor involved, at the time of the events head of the Orthopedics department of the Sacro Cuore di Gesu' Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Benevento, used exclusively orthopedic prostheses made, marketed or distributed by two companies supplying surgical materials.
To 'thank' the doctor, the companies assured him money on a monthly basis: 315.000 euros 'justified' with letters of assignment for fictitious consultancy and training that were never actually provided by the doctor. And again, monthly bribes for 185.779 euros equal to 8% of the value of the prostheses sold.
Renovation work on a property in Maiori, on the Amalfi Coast, for 72.712 euros, the use of a scooter and a car. Of particular importance to the investigations was also the discovery of a real parallel personal accounting kept by the head physician where the proceeds of the legal activity carried out at the hospital were recorded, as well as that deriving from private visits, but also that illicit received in black, the result of bribes.
The doctor had an accurate count of both incoming and outgoing sums, operations that found full correspondence in the manuscripts of one of the bribers. In order to justify and account for the impressive flow of money that flowed annually from the company's accounts to those of the health worker, the use of apparent professional assignments had been devised.
Tasks that were given to the doctor for consultations and training courses, documented with invoices for non-existent operations. Also significant are the messages exchanged between the doctor and one of the suspects to comment on the progress of their illicit business.
Article published on 4 October 2022 - 19:10