The Public Prosecutor’s Office has accused 18 defendants of numerous crimes for allegedly fraudulently issuing medical prescriptions and death certificates over three years, the Lisbon Regional Prosecutor General’s Office announced today.
“In the years 2022, 2023, and 2024, the defendants accessed platforms exclusively used by qualified professionals, specifically platforms used in the National Health System, fraudulently issuing medical prescriptions, death certificates, and other documents”, stated the Lisbon Regional Prosecutor General’s Office in a communication.
According to the statement, the defendants also allegedly accessed and illicitly exploited “Social Security’s computer services.”
Additionally, they allegedly mass distributed emails intended “to mislead third parties about supposed debts to credible entities – such as EDP, EDP Comercial, Endesa, CTT – and to obtain payments from these third parties through entities and references under their control.”
They are also suspected of creating a website “for anonymous and persistent sharing of personal data of third parties.”
The indictment was filed on July 15 by the Lisbon Department of Investigation and Penal Action, and the case involves alleged “dozens of counts of aggravated unauthorized access and computer falsehood.”
According to the Lisbon Regional Prosecutor General’s Office, the defendants are also accused of document forgery, qualified fraud, money laundering, computer fraud, possession of prohibited weapons, misuse of guarantee cards or payment cards, stalking, invasion of private life, abuse and simulation of danger signals, breach of privacy, extortion, threat, and public instigation to commit a crime.
Three out of the 18 accused are awaiting the complex proceedings in preventive detention.
