In January, an investigation into a doctor in Rincón de la Victoria began, thanks to complaints from two patients. Now, two more new patients have joined the complaints against the fake doctor in Rincón. He charged up to €6,000 per treatment.
The whole thing came to light when two people filed complaints with the Guardia Civil in January. According to the officers, one of them was scammed out of around €80,000. The second victim is said to have paid €240,000 to the fake doctor. The newly affected patients brought their cases to the attention of the Guardia Civil on Thursday. They had learned that the alleged doctor is being investigated for, among other things, aggravating circumstance fraud.
The man reportedly worked for more than 30 years as a rehabilitation doctor in a private practice in Torre de Benagalbón, in the municipality of Rincón de la Victoria, 20 kilometres east of Málaga. He did so without the necessary qualification.
Fake doctor investigation
The Civil Guard is now continuing the investigation to try to locate patients who have been treated by the 56-year-old suspect over the past three decades. They would have paid a price between €900 and €6,000. A normal price for a consultation would be around €30 euros. Officers suspect that the fake doctor has been able to make much higher profits all this time than is currently known.
Fraud
According to sources, the person under investigation for aggravated fraud had a private practice in Torre de Benagalbón. Although he wasn’t open every weekday, the fake doctor was able to treat an average of about ten patients on the days he was active. They had various ailments and pains.
These medical appointments, as the officers determined, usually lasted about half an hour. It seems that the alleged fake doctor also used alternative medicine during these appointments, using special herbs during the treatments.
Fake doctor told more lies
According to the Guardia Civil, the suspect would also have misled patients. He said he taught pathological anatomy at the University of Granada. This, too, was a lie. In addition, he is said to have led others to believe that he worked at the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital. This, reported the College of Physicians of Málaga, which is acting as a private prosecutor in this case.
The College, as it has highlighted, has also been working with the authorities to bring this matter to light. This happened after it received a question from the family member of one of the people involved. He contacted the medical professional body to check whether the person being investigated was a member of the College. It was established that he was not. Not in Málaga, not at any other college in Spain.
Administration fake doctor
Officers found two notebooks in the fake doctor’s office. In it, he had written down the appointments as well as the names of the patients and the money he charged for the alleged treatments. However, these notebooks contain only recent appointments, which means that the investigation continues to find more victims.
The officers additionally discovered that he used a stamp on his reports stating that he was a rehabilitation doctor and his registration number. The latter was also false. Among other evidence, police seized several medical reports, blood tests, ultrasound scans, and MRI scans.
For all these reasons, the man was arrested for alleged crimes such as aggravated fraud. The man is currently provisionally released. As a preventive measure, his passport was revoked. In addition, he must report to the court every 15 days.
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