SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 5th August (EUROPA PRESS) –
A 45-year-old woman and her 22-year-old son, both residents of the mentioned municipality, have been arrested by Civil Guard officers from the Investigation Area of the Main Post of La Orotava. They are accused of stealing personal data from patients to fraudulently obtain medical prescriptions, facing charges of an alleged crime of civil status usurpation and fraud.
The crimes took place at the end of last year when the woman, who has been detained, abused her position as a cleaning worker at the San Cristóbal de La Laguna Health Centre. She fraudulently acquired and stole various personal data of patients at the Centre, along with documentation, which she later passed on to her son.
Armed with this information, the woman’s son sought telephone appointments at several health centres on Tenerife. He obtained prescriptions for medications containing opiates or psychotropic substances. Then, by posing as a relative of the patient, he visited pharmacies in different municipalities with the stolen documents to collect the medicines.
Following an intensive investigation conducted by Civil Guard officers, involving various investigative measures and meticulous document analysis, they were eventually able to identify the alleged perpetrators of both crimes.
The detainees, along with the evidence collected, have been handed over to the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 4 in La Orotava, which is currently on duty.
These criminal acts were causing significant harm to the affected patients, as they faced difficulties when collecting their medication from pharmacies. The medicines had already been mistakenly dispensed or sold to the now detained individual, resulting in substantial financial losses for the Canary Islands Health Service.
