A nurse in the Friesland district is said to have drawn syringes with saline solutions instead of vaccines. Premises are searched. It should be about billing fraud.
Oldenburg / Jever – During the investigation into possible vaccinations with saline solutions, the police searched several rooms on Thursday.
The searches took place mainly in the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony, said the Oldenburg police headquarters, the reason for suspicion of accounting fraud. Several buildings of the German Red Cross (DRK) and the vaccination center in Schortens, which is operated by the DRK, were affected.
The suspicion is directed against five DRK employees, as the police department announced. You are therefore accused of having billed more hours of work by staff who were deployed in the Schortens vaccination center than were actually worked in the period from February to July of this year. How great the damage is is still unclear.
The findings that now led to the searches go back to the vaccine investigative group, which was used to clarify possible vaccinations with saline solutions at the Schortens vaccination center. A registered nurse is accused. “The investigation is ongoing,” said the police.
Business premises are searched
Around 40 officials searched several buildings on Thursday morning in proceedings by the Oldenburg public prosecutor’s office. The premises of the DRK district associations Jeverland and Varel-Friesische Wehde, the DRK regional association Oldenburg and the private homes of DRK employees were searched. According to the police, evidence such as file folders, PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones was seized. The data carriers are now to be evaluated. The DRK district association Jeverland could not initially be reached to comment on the searches.
As the police also announced, the first random samples of the hourly accounts of employees submitted to the Friesland district had already given rise to suspicion. These indicated damage in the four-digit range. The exact extent of the damage should now be determined.
The eight-member vaccine investigation team had only been set up by the police last week to advance the investigation into the case of possible vaccinations with saline solutions. The Oldenburg Police Vice President Andreas Sagehorn had stated that the scope and complexity of these investigations had increased significantly in the past few weeks and months. It is therefore necessary to broaden the investigation work.
Attempted cover-up by nurse
The investigation is carried out against a registered nurse. She had admitted that on April 21 at the vaccination center in Schortens, she had filled six syringes for corona vaccinations, mostly with saline solutions. She had dropped a vial of vaccine while mixing, which she said she wanted to cover up. On August 10, the district and the police announced that, according to further testimony, it could not be ruled out that the woman had drawn further syringes with saline solutions. The accused’s lawyer recently announced that his client’s act on April 21 was an isolated incident.
In order to catch up on the possibly missing vaccinations, follow-up vaccinations are currently being carried out as a precautionary measure for around ten thousand people affected in the Friesland district. Despite the searches of the vaccination center in Schortens, the post-vaccinations and the regular vaccinations continued there on Thursday, as a spokeswoman for the district said. dpa
