The system has a flaw that could have cost the government a lot. A German 17-year old invented a fake Covid-19 testing centre and received reimbursement of expenses for 5.7 million euros. On Monday, May 30, he was arrested.
The idea was conceived by him at a bar in Freiburg im Breisgau during a conversation between friends in the summer 2021. Teenagers discover that fake Covid tests can make it possible for them to collect large sums of money. The "Burgertest" and "citizen test", which are mainly performed on contact cases, is not covered by the latter. The Kassenarztliche Vereinigung, a group of doctors that is approved by German health insurance services, reimburses screening centers for these expenses on the presentation of a simple invoice.
The teenager created his own fictitious center using the KV platform and sent identical invoices to the organization. He even mentions the name of the bar that inspired him to create the center when he fills in the address.
The young man is accused of charging nearly 500,000 tests between March 2021 and June 2021. This amount will be "reimbursed "... 5.8 million euros by KV." He does not seem to mind the 5,000 screenings that are carried out daily by the fictitious centre.
Finally, it is a bank employee who suspects money laundering after seeing the student's income explode. He sounds the alarm and alerts police. The scam was exposed and the money was immediately frozen.
On Monday, the young man, now 19 years old, went to court. He was sentenced to a fine for 1,500 euros and to a "sentence to a minor". The justice also gave him a one year reprieve at which point he can no longer be sanctioned if he has not been convicted of any offense.
The "DNAs" pointed out that this isn't the first instance of Covid fraud in Germany. North Rhine-Westphalia's 70 test centers were accused of inflating more than a million fake tests for fraud that cost 25 million euros.
