The CBA strikes the "drug mafia"
The CBA agents from Bialystok broke an organized criminal group up, which within the so-called reversed distribution chain illegally purchased in years 2017-2018 medicines from the pharmacies across the country, necessary to save lives - worth at least 100 million zł, with the intention to export them abroad despite the ban. The prohibition of export covers, among others, oncological, antidiabetic, antidepressant drugs, used to treat ADHD, vaccines or hypoallergenic preparations for children. The group broken up by the CBA was able to cooperate from 2014 with over 6,500 pharmacies across Poland. The case is still ongoing.
The CBA findings and gathered evidence point to members of an organized criminal group involved in buying from pharmacies medicines, including life-saving drugs and drugs on the special list of the Minister of Health, threatened by lack of availability in Poland. The ministerial list includes, among others, oncological and antidiabetic drugs, anticoagulants, antipsychotics and antidepressants, used in the treatment of ADHD, analgesics, vaccines and hypoallergenic preparations for children with allergies or special diets.
The CBA agents from Bialystok detained 7 people in this case. In Warsaw got caught the organizer of the dealing - the owner of the companies taking part in it and the director of the drug warehouse in Poznań. In Wielkopolskie and Podlasie provinces, the co-owner and employees of the medicine warehouse were detained, and in the Łódźkie province a doctor who was issuing in a blank and even wholesale requisitions for medicines. One of the owners of a network of pharmacies cooperating with the broken up group was detained in Ostrołęka.
The CBA agents searched the detainees' apartments, cars and premises occupied by 10 other companies - including drug wholesalers controlled or cooperating with the detainees.
As a result of searches, hundreds of empty, blank printed requisitions - on which there could be many types of sought-after drugs in large quantities.
As the agents of the CBA established, the salable medicines were bought from pharmacies on the basis of false requisition documents. Clean requisitions in thousands were issued by a doctor operating in the group - who was detained by the CBA officers. Requisitions were issued to one of the medical clinic controlled by the detainees. Drugs were not intended for patients, but for further profitable wholesale resale. Through the wholesale of pharmaceuticals and medicines cooperating in this chain, illegally bought medicines from the Polish market were sold to European countries.
Only now, after the detentions, the materials collected by the CBA Regional Office in Białystok were transferred to the District Prosecutor's Office in Białystok. The detainees in the prosecutor's office will be charged with, inter alia, calling down danger to life or health of many people, participation in an organized criminal group and crimes against the credibility of documents.
As it was established from the beginning of the activity, that is 2014, the group broken up by the CBA could had been cooperated with over 6,500 pharmacies and pharmacy points from all over Poland. The CBA agents do not rule out further detentions in this case.