Pharmacist Jignesh Patel, 46, owner of Wise Pharmacy and the wholesale firm Actipharm Ltd in north London, and employee Rahil Patel, 42, have each been sentenced to six years. They were convicted of three counts of fraud by false representation and two counts of converting criminal property. Justice Cole said the fraud was driven by greed and described the two men as equal partners in the scheme.
Between January 2015 and November 2017 they generated 1,639 fraudulent prescriptions in the names of 24 general practitioners who did not know their names were being used. The false prescriptions covered 6,983 items and mainly concerned high-cost hospital-grade medicines, including Sprycel and Noxafil.
The pair claimed £1.3 million in NHS reimbursements for the false claims, then illegally exported the drugs and resold them to pharmaceutical wholesalers in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium.
An international investigation led by the NHS Counter Fraud Authority, working with European law enforcement, uncovered the scam. Enforcement officers will now start proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover the stolen public funds.