Businessmen confess to selling fake gel to hospitals during pandemic
The men, originally from Galicia, saw their sentences reduced from 9 to 2 years. They set up a clandestine laboratory in an old chicken farm and distributed the product in pharmacies, shops and bars.
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Mundo Covid-19
Fraud with health material multiplied during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Spain, one of the most striking cases was detected in the province of A Coruña when, in 2020, the Guardia Civil discovered a laboratory in an old chicken farm where thousands of litres of a product sold in hospitals as hydroalcoholic gel were manufactured, but which in reality was adulterated with spirits.
The perpetrators of the fraud are two men from the town of Boiro, in Galicia, who were tried in the Court of A Coruña.
According to El País, through two official distributors, these businessmen managed to place the fake gel in hospitals and health centres throughout Spain during the month of April 2020, the worst moment of the pandemic, taking advantage of the urgent need for the product.
The hearing that was due to take place this Tuesday did not take place because José Antonio S. and Juan S. accepted an agreement with the Public Prosecutor's Office, which requested a sentence of almost nine years in prison for each of them for a continued crime of fraud and another of manufacture, storage and marketing of medical devices with a potential risk to human health.
The advantageous agreement, which implies a confession of the facts, will prevent the two perpetrators of the fraud from being imprisoned, on condition that they pay a fine of 17,520 euros each and do not reoffend in the next two years. The trial ended with a sentence of two years and three months for the crimes of continued fraud and another against public health.
The defendants acknowledged that they both used the commercial company Quimicalsa to enrich themselves, while thousands of people were dying daily in Spain and there was a shortage of disinfectant products on the market. They accepted the account of the facts given by the prosecutor in his accusation, which dates back to the months of confinement, when the defendants, "aware of the shortage and demand for the product, agreed to take advantage of this situation".
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