Albania Arrests Nine Over Health Insurance Fraud

Four officials and five owners and employees of pharmacies accused of stealing 56 million leks (400,000 euro) have been arrested in recent days as the Albanian government faces its biggest corruption scandal since it came to power 18 months ago.

Two similar cases involving suspected fraud of several million euros are also currently under investigation.

Albania provides free medicines for people included in the obligatory health insurance fund by reimbursing pharmacies for prescription drugs.

Under the scheme, medics issues prescriptions to clients who receive their medicines for free in pharmacies. The pharmacies are paid later by the Fund for Obligatory Health Insurance.

According to prosecutors, the Fund signed four new contracts with pharmacies, two of them in two villages near Tirana. Between September 2014 and March 2015, these pharmacies sold unusually high quantities of expensive medicines used to treat tumours.

"Investigators found that medical prescriptions in these cases were fake," the prosecutors said in a statement.

Police on Saturday also arrested Pjerin Xhuvani, 50, the director of the Fund for Tirana, who is also political activist with the Socialist Movement for Integration Party (LSI) party and was its head of office in the town of Elbasan.

The LSI is headed by parliamentary speaker Ilir Meta and is currently a coalition partner of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

According to prosecutors, Xhuvani is suspected of masterminding the fraud because he signed the contracts with the pharmacies and reimbursed bills claimed by them.

Xhuvani appeared in court in Tirana on Sunday and was remanded in custody awaiting trial.

Following his arrest, the LSI said that it had dismissed him.

"The LSI...