The Las Piedras Prosecutor’s Office in charge of Verónica Bujarín achieved in an oral trial the sentence of a notary public to six years in jail (effective compliance) for falsifying medical prescriptions and selling expired medicines in its three pharmacies, located in Las Piedras, La Paz and Joanicó (Canelones). The investigation was carried out within the framework of “Operation Asclepio”, in April 2019, when “it was known in social networks that doctors, mutual insurance companies and laboratories were victims of forgery of signatures so that a network of pharmacies would dispense drugs at a certain price and through the recipe books to obtain the benefit known as Pharma discount ”, says the statement from the Attorney General’s Office.
“In addition, non-prescription drugs, medications and hygiene effects with adulterated dates were offered for sale, putting the health of the population at risk,” he adds.
Several doctors cited in the investigation claimed to be unaware of their signatures and stamps on the false prescriptions, which were sent to a printing press that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, was unaware of the maneuver.
“Several clients admitted to having bought medicines without the corresponding prescription; they only went to pharmacies and spoke with SR (previously convicted) or with BFR (now convicted) and took the medication, “says the statement from the Prosecutor’s Office.
“Both SR and BFR gave orders in the various branches and their employees to sell drugs without a prescription (which R. later also made with F.’s knowledge) and to cut out drug blisters with the expired date. Those who could not hide the expiration were passed acetone, “adds the official statement.
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According to the Prosecutor’s Office, after the raids and inspections it was found: “that the Joanicó branch was closed, disabled by the MSP, that some medicines had expired and that the police authority had already seized expired medicines. In addition, in the Las Piedras branch there were medicines whose date was not current, the MSP chemist did not have the cookbooks in sight, cold chain medicines were found in the refrigerator mixed with food, the existence of open cases was verified and expired units and Misoprostol was found. Finally, in the branch located in La Paz, the chemist could not access the Cookbooks either, medication was found in sight that was not current (some medications were on shelves for sale), containers with blurred batches and cosmetics for adults and children with expiration dates before June 2019 and stickers where the expiration date must go ”.
With all the evidence collected and the testimonies presented in the oral trial, the conviction of BFR was ordered “as the criminally responsible author of a continuing crime of commercial offering or sale of substances dangerous to health, falsified, adulterated or denatured, under the regime of real reiteration with a continuous crime of commercial offer or sale of genuine substances by people disabled to do so, as the author, both in formal competition with a continuous crime of issuance without a medical prescription or in detriment of their prescriptions and continuous crimes of falsification of private document as co-author and these in turn in competition out of the reiteration with continued crimes of fraud ”.
For all this, he received a six-year prison sentence for effective compliance.