Upon drawing up the indictment, Mr. Artūras Karpalovas, the Chief Prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of Šiauliai Regional Prosecutor’s Office, referred the criminal case related to possible large-scale corruption offenses in the field of pharmacy to the court.
The pre-trial investigation, in which charges were brought against a legal entity - a pharmaceutical company and 11 natural persons, was conducted by officers of the Šiauliai Board of the Special Investigation Service (STT). The criminal case referred to the court with the indictment amounts to a total of 200 volumes.
For this pre-trial investigation, the Prosecutor General’s Office had formed a special investigation group of prosecutors of Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys regional prosecutor’s offices and officers of all STT territorial subdivisions.
During the pre-trial investigation, a criminal corruption scheme was detected, which allegedly involved representatives of a pharmaceutical company and doctors from various medical institutions in the country. It is suspected that 12 employees of this pharmaceutical company were operating in an organised group. Some of the members of this group – the company’s managers – have allegedly agreed with the doctors of the medical institutions of Lithuanian cities and districts they serve to recommend patients to purchase for an illegal fee, and later to inject the products distributed by their company.
The amount of bribes given at one time varied, depending on the value of the product distributed and where the product was purchased (from a pharmacy, online, directly from a doctor or manager). The amount of bribes paid to the doctor by the manager of the pharmaceutical company could range from EUR 15 to EUR 102 per product recommended and injected by the doctor, and those amounts of bribes were included in the price of the preparations.
During the investigation, more than 1,100 people were interrogated and data that the company could spend more than 74 thousand euros on bribes to bribe doctors from 2014 to the beginning of 2015 was collected.
In the completed criminal case, a legal entity – a pharmaceutical company – is accused of graft and fraudulent management of accounts. Representatives of 7 pharmaceutical companies are also accused of graft and some of them – of fraudulent management of accounts, and 4 doctors – of bribery.
The criminal offence could have been committed in Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šiauliai and 24 other smaller Lithuanian cities.
During the pre-trial investigation, procedural decisions had already been made against 80 doctors and 5 employees of a pharmaceutical company after they pleaded guilty. Amounts of bribes were confiscated, contributions were made to the Crime Victims Fund, and fines were imposed. In this case, the participants in the proceedings have already paid more than 100 thousand euros, which supplemented the state budget. Also, the State Tax Inspectorate (STI) has filed a claim against the pharmaceutical company for more than 39 thousand euros.
The criminal case was referred to the Vilnius Regional Court.
The Criminal Code provides for the bribery a fine or arrest, or imprisonment for a term up to 5 years, for graft – a fine or restriction of liberty, or arrest, or imprisonment, and for fraudulent management of accounts – a fine or arrest, or imprisonment for a term up to 4 years.
Criminal case consisting of 200 volumes or 34711 pages.
