The Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) states that the group of young individuals accused this month of accessing restricted platforms to issue false prescriptions and death certificates did so to consume drugs and mock others online, including teenagers.
On July 15, the Lisbon PPO charged 18 individuals, approximately 20 years old, with 466 crimes, mostly cyber-related, for allegedly using unauthorized medical credentials between December 2022 and April 2024 to access platforms employed by the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, issuing hundreds of false medical prescriptions and dozens of false death certificates.
According to the indictment, the scheme’s masterminds were three young men who met on an online gaming platform and, between 2022 and 2023, decided to collect data from forums, stolen by unknown third parties in cyberattacks.
In addition to the National Health Service (SNS), the defendants—18 in total—allegedly accessed and illicitly exploited “social security computer services.”
The three then created and managed a Discord group for sharing illicit acts, which included, among others, a fourth young man who also played a significant role in the scheme.
The false medical prescriptions were primarily used to purchase codeine-based medications, which they consumed mixed in soft drinks, a recreational drug known as “purple drank” or “lean.”
Some of the defendants reportedly paid others to issue fraudulent prescriptions.
The death certificates, as described by the PPO, were meant to ridicule living individuals, including a 14-year-old boy with whom one of the accused had a disagreement during an online game.
Some of the certificates were published on a forum allegedly created by the defendant who met the initial trio through Discord.
The indictment also includes the case of a 15-year-old boy who was enticed with vouchers for gaming platforms to use a relative’s credentials to search the social security databases and share the obtained information.
The main defendants are also accused of sending hundreds of thousands of messages convincing third parties they owed debts to companies such as EDP, EDP Comercial, ENDESA, and CTT.
Three out of the 18 accused face charges solely for money laundering, for purportedly aiding in laundering the proceeds from this last illicit activity.
The three alleged masterminds have been awaiting the trial’s outcome in preventive detention since April 2024, while the other 15 defendants are free.
The case is considered “particularly complex.”
